Hyderabad: A 26-year-old engineering dropout from Jagtial was arrested on Friday for cheating a senior citizen earlier this year for 42 lakh in a digital arrest scam.Following the money trail, Cyberabad police arrested the accused — G Avinash, 26, from Katlakunta village — after he returned to Jagtial on March 26. Police recovered 12 lakh from the accused. According to cybercrime DCP T Sai Manohar, Avinash went to Cambodia last year for data entry work and initially was forced to work for a cybercrime syndicate. “Later, he willingly started working for cybercrime gangs operating from Cambodia and started cheating Indians,” the DCP added. Posing as a law enforcement official, Avinash called a 66-year-old retired employee from Balanagar on Jan 27. Threatening to arrest him in a human trafficking case, Avinash and other accused forced the victim to transfer 42 lakh between Jan 28 and Feb 4.According to inspector G Vijay Kumar, a case was registered on Feb 16 on the victim’s complaint. It was identified that a significant chunk of the crime proceeds (24 lakh) was routed to a bank account in Visakhapatnam. While the bank account holder, Krishna, is on the run, police arrested Krishna’s associates, Dhanunjay Reddy of Visakhapatnam and Shashi Kumar of Jagtial, last month. The duo confessed to having provided Krishna’s bank account to Avinash.Of the 24 lakh, Avinash took 12 lakh as his share. Account holder Krishna got 10 lakh and the other two middlemen got 1 lakh each. Police kept a watch on the movements of Avinash and they came to know that he reached Jagtial on March 26 and arrested Avinash on Friday. Police are also trying to identify the other bank account holders to recover the rest. “There is nothing called digital arrest. If someone calls you posing as police and threatens to digitally arrest you, inform police immediately,” the DCP cautioned the public. “Chances of full recovery are very high if you contact ‘1930′ helpline within one hour,” the DCP said.
