Pune: Cybercrooks posing as officials of various authorities, including the telecom department, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and police, extorted Rs10 lakh from a 59-year-old resident of Chikhali in a digital arrest scam this month.The fraud took place between Sept 11 and Sept 16. The man approached the Chikhali police on Saturday and lodged a complaint. The police have registered a case under sections 318 (cheating), 204 (personating as a public servant), 308 (extortion) and 61(2) (criminal conspiracy) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and relevant sections of the Information Technology (IT) Act.An officer from the Chikhali police said the complainant works with a private company in Chakan MIDC. On Sept 11, he received a call from an unknown cellphone number. The caller claimed to be an official from the telecom department and told the complainant that his Aadhaar number had been misused for money laundering. He then connected him with a “CBI official”.The fake CBI official told the complainant that his team had recently raided the house of one Sandeep Sharma, a criminal on police records, and found 180 bank passbooks. He claimed that one of the passbooks was in the complainant’s name and that transactions had been made from the account to a terror organisation.“The ‘CBI official’ threatened to arrest the complainant and told him to share details of his savings and investments,” the officer said.The caller then connected the man to an officer from “RBI”. The latter told him that the RBI had opened a separate bank account to verify the accounts of all persons allegedly connected with Sharma.“He told the complainant to transfer his money to that bank account and assured him it would be returned within 24 hours after the verification,” the officer said.The officer said the crooks also threatened the complainant not to discuss the case with anyone as it was linked to a terrorist organisation. The complainant later received a video call from the “police officer”, who claimed that the crime branch was keeping a constant watch on him.“As the person on the video call was in uniform, the complainant believed him and transferred Rs10 lakh to the bank account on Sept 16,” the officer said.He said that after 24 hours, when the money was not returned, the man contacted his son, a software engineer. A friend of the complainant’s son, who works with a bank, told him that it was a fraud and suggested that he approach the police.“We have registered the case. Senior police inspector Ranjit Jadhav is investigating the case,” the officer said.
