Digital arrest: Woman falls prey to new online scam

NOIDA: In the latest scam, a woman from Noida, India’s Uttar Pradesh state, was allegedly duped of 1.1 million Indian rupees (INR) after she was “digitally arrested” for a day by the cyber criminals who posed as ‘cops’ online.

It was the first ‘digital arrest’ fraud case lodged at the Cyber Crime police station in the Noida city, according to the Indian media reports.

The miscreants posed as police officials, who linked the 50-year-old woman to a money laundering case and mentioned the names of an IPS officer in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the founder of a grounded airline, according to NDTV.

In her complaint, the victim said she was contacted over an IVR (interactive voice response) call on November 13. The thugs reportedly claimed that a SIM card was bought using her Aadhaar card in Mumbai and used for harassing women and illegal advertisements.

She added, “My call was transferred to a person (who identified himself as a Mumbai Police officer) who did the initial interrogation over the call and then on Skype.”

“Then he informed me that I have another allegation of money laundering related to (the founder of an airline) for which an FIR has been registered against me and an arrest warrant issued by the Supreme Court for which he sent documents on Skype.”

“After the interrogation, he said I am innocent and not guilty, so he is transferring the interrogation (to an IPS officer posted with the CBI, Mumbai) for further investigation of this case. Then he gave the Skype ID and asked me to request the CBI officer to do the priority investigation on VC to remove my arrest warrant,” the complaint read.

The fake CBI officer told the woman that the police found 246 debit cards from the airline founder’s house and one of them had her name on it. The official added that the card was used to open a bank account with her Aadhaar card.

The woman claimed she was told her account was used to transfer Rs2 crore for which she was paid Rs20 lakh.

“However, he said I do not look to be involved in this case, so to complete the investigation, I need to transfer funds from all my accounts to my ICICI account and subsequently, transfer the funds from the ICICI account to the PFC account as per the directives of the Supreme Court…,” she said.

The victim stated she was asked not to disclose this information as it was a matter of “national security”.

The complainant further said, “Also, to prove not guilty of the crime, he asked me to keep sufficient balance in my accounts for which he also advised to apply for a personal instant loan of Rs 20 lakh from ICICI and gave the details of how to apply for the same, which I denied but he forced me to arrange Rs 3 lakh more through the same and after much pressure, I had applied for the same, which is also transferred to the PFC account.”

The suspects also took a picture of her signature via Skype on the pretext of validating her Aadhaar card.

The woman reported the incident to the Uttar Pradesh Police’s Cyber Crime officers, alleging that she was “digitally arrested” from morning to night.

In-charge of the Noida Sector 36 Cyber Crime police station, Inspector Reeta Yadav, stated that an FIR has been filed under the relevant provisions of the Information Technology (IT) Act and the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

“An investigation into the case is underway,” she said.

The ‘digital arrest’ online fraud was earlier reported in Haryana’s Faridabad where fake police personnel “digitally arrested” a woman for over a week after convincing her that her personal IDs were used for illegal activities.