Mumbai: The fraudsters, posing as personnel from the law enforcement agencies, threatened a septuagenarian husband-wife duo that the wife’s Aadhaar card had been seized from one of the 90 terrorists arrested by the Lucknow ATS. To examine if their money was valid, the fake cops asked the elderly couple to send money to them for verification and assured to return once it gets clean chit. The couple in nine transactions sent Rs 2.84 crore and later realised they were duped by fake cops.The East cyber police station registered an FIR on March 24 against eight unidentified persons for cheating, forgery and extortion under the BNS and identity theft under the IT act. The alleged ‘digital arrest’ crime took place between Dec 16 last year and Mar 23 this year.The 77-year-old husband, who trades in shares, in his FIR stated that he resided along with his 72-year-old wife at Kanjur Marg. The wife retired from the post of a senior personal assistant from the state govt’s cooperative and marketing department. One of the couple’s two sons works abroad.The complainant told police that on Dec 16 an unknown person called up his wife and introduced himself as police inspector Ranjit Kumar from Mumbai Police Headquarters. “He then said that my wife’s Aadhaar card has been linked to the bank account of a terrorist organisation and it is being investigated by Lucknow ATS. He said that Lucknow ATS officer Prem Kumar Gautam will contact him in this regard,” the complainant told police. Scared, the wife informed her husband. Later, he received a call from a person who said he was Premkumar Gautam from Lucknow ATS and that the ATS had arrested 90 terrorists. Gautam told the complainant that his wife’s Aadhaar card had been seized from one of the terrorists and that his senior officer Ajay Srivastava would contact the couple regarding this.Then another person, Ajay Srivastava, called up the complainant’s wife. He said that Rs 70 lakh had been deposited in the complainant’s wife’s bank account and that further investigation was being done through the National Investigation Agency.Later, Srivastava sent documents titled Confidentiality Agreement with the logo of the NIA to the complainant’s wife via WhatsApp. A document sent by Srivastava contained a fake sign of an RBI deputy governor.Srivastava told the couple that the NIA chief would contact them through the ‘Signal’ app regarding the incident. The accused also asked the couple to send them a message every four hours saying “We are safe with national security.” Srivasatava also sent the complainant a message on Signal saying his meeting was scheduled with the NIA chief. During the WhatsApp call meeting the fake NIA chief asked the complainant to send all the money for verification and assured to return after examination.When the complainant did not get their money back, he realised he was cheated. On March 23, he and his wife went to the NIA office at Peddar Road in central Mumbai where the couple was asked to go to the cyber police station.
