A 65-year-old woman from Vadodara’s Manjalpur area has filed a complaint against unidentified persons with the cybercrime police station after reportedly becoming a victim of a “Digital Arrest” scam.
According to the complaint, the cyberfraudsters, posing as a team of officers of the Mumbai police, Enforcement Directorate and other investigation departments fleeced Rs 60 lakh from her bank account after keeping her “under digital arrest” for more than three days.
The First Information Report (FIR) was filed at the Cybercrime police station on Thursday which states that the complainant received a call on October 22 from an unknown number, posing as an official of the Andheri police station in Mumbai.
The complainant said that the caller allegedly informed her that her SBI bank account had been used for money laundering of Rs 1,000 crore and an accused arrested in the alleged fraud, identified as Ravishankar, had named her during an investigation.
The complainant said, “Thereafter, at around 2:55 P.M, I received a Whatsapp message from another mobile number and received a video call from the same number. The man identified himself as an ED officer and asked me about money laundering and the bank account said to be involved in it. He asked me for evidence (of innocence). They told me I would have to continue to message them, ‘Everything is ok’ every hour until the next morning. The following day, on October 23, another man posed as ‘Prosecutor Assistant Director’ by the name of “Neeraj Kumar” and continued the so-called ‘investigation’”. She was even asked to sign a “confidentiality agreement” after pursuing her to transfer Rs 1.8 lakh through RTGS (Real Time Gross Settlement).
According to the complainant, the accused also requested information about her pension account, bank accounts, fixed deposits, including documentary statements to verify her claim.
According to investigators, on October 24, the accused had the woman transfer Rs 5.55 lakh and then Rs 26 lakh by RTGS. On October 25, the complainant allegedly transferred Rs 27 lakh to the accused, totaling to a cyberfraud of Rs 60.35 lakh. The complainant stated, “The person had promised that the money would be returned to me after penalties to finish off the case against me for money laundering….However, when the money was not returned until now, I have realized that the accused have committed fraud and chating by electronic means”.
According to woman’s lawsuit, she lost her husband in the 2020 pandemic, and her son, working as an IT professional, lives in Mumbai. Inspector BN Patel of Vadodara cyber police station said that an investigation has been initiated into the complaint of the woman.
