Noida: At least three major cases of digital arrest have been reported to police from Feb to March, in which the victims were cheated of approximately Rs 2 crore. In the first incident, a 72-year-old man from Surajpur was cheated of more than Rs 1 crore after fraudsters put him under digital arrest from Feb 6 to 26.The victim, Dilip Kumar Das, alleged in his complaint that on Feb 6, he received a call from a person who introduced himself as an official of the Telecom Regulatory Authority. Allegedly, the caller told the victim his mobile number was used to send obscene videos to several persons and the case was being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Das was also told that transactions amounting to Rs 2 crore were traced to his bank account, which he had apparently sold for Rs 5 lakh to evade punishment. “The victim was asked to reach Mumbai within two hours for the investigation. When he expressed his inability to do so, the caller put him under digital arrest via video call,” said an officer.Das said there were more than one person in the video call in which he was arrested. “A person wearing a judge’s robe instructed another person dressed as a police officer standing beside him to arrest me. The police officer then told the judge that I was a senior citizen and requested him not to arrest me as I was cooperating with them,” read the FIR.Police said that on the pretext of investigation and money verification, the victim was forced to transfer his savings into bank accounts provided by the suspects. “From Feb 6 to 26, the victim transferred Rs 1.2 crore in multiple transactions. Despite receiving a fake no dues certificate (NOC), when the money was not credited back to the victim’s bank account, he realised that he had been cheated,” said the officer.Meanwhile, in the second incident, a 75-year-old man was put under digital arrest from Feb 24 to March 9 and defrauded of nearly Rs 76 lakh in Greater Noida’s Sector 1, police said.Ramnath Singh said in his FIR, “On Feb 24, I received a WhatsApp video call from an unidentified man and the caller introduced himself as the director of CBI. He alleged that my Aadhaar card was linked to a bank account which was used to cheat 247 people of a total of Rs 38 crore.”“To investigate, the suspect put me under digital arrest and I transferred Rs 75.6 lakh from Feb 26 to March 3,” read the FIR.Police said when the victim contacted the suspect to get his money back and he did not respond, he realised he had been cheated. Following this, the matter was reported at the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP) and a case was registered at the Cybercrime Branch police station.Similarly, in the third incident, a 50-year-old woman, Sabnam, lost Rs 8.5 lakh in a digital arrest scam on Feb 12.The victim, a resident of Sector 34, said she received a call from an unknown man who told her that a money laundering case was registered against her in Jammu and Kashmir. “When I said there was a mistake and requested them not to arrest me, he said they would first verify the money in my bank account. He said I would have to deposit my money into bank accounts specified by him, which would be returned to me after verification. I transferred the money on Feb 13. When I tried to contact them later to get back my money, they did not take my calls,” she said.Vijay Rana, SHO of Cybercrime Branch police Station said three cases under sections 318(4) (cheating) and 319 (cheating by personation) of the BNS and relevant sections of the IT Act have been registered. Teams have been formed to investigate .
