Senior Woman Duped of ₹2.89 Crore in ‘Digital Arrest’ Scam; Mumbai Police Recovers ₹1.29 Crore

Mumbai: A senior citizen woman of Vile Parle aged 73 was scammed of a whopping amount of ₹2.89 crores by the swindlers impersonating the government. However, the Mumbai Police acted quickly and managed to get back ₹1.29 crores of the siphoned money as confirmed by an official on Thursday.

As per the reports, the woman got a WhatsApp call from a person representing the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Monday and soon the scam involved her all the way up to Wednesday. The fake caller made an issue of her bank account being used for bad purposes and asked her to get the financial transactions cleared.

Following shortly, a second swindler acting like a police officer came in and told her that she was implicated in the bank fraud case of a business tycoon who was under investigation. The caller threatened that the lady would be digitally arrested if she didn’t comply.

In order to increase the threat, the perpetrators set up the video call where another impersonator was playing the role of a judge who was assuring that making instant payment would let her avoid the legal repercussions. The woman, out of fear of arrest and trouble, ended up transferring ₹2.89 crore in two days.

The moment she felt that she had been tricked, she immediately called the 1930 cyber helpline, which is a dedicated support system for cybercrime victims. The case was later registered on the NCPR (National Cybercrime Reporting Portal).

Cyber helpline cell’s swift response, as per the officials, resulted in recovering ₹1.29 crores and the officials added they are still working on tracing the rest of the amount and nabbing the criminals.