Kanpur: Cyber fraudsters kept a former banker under digital arrest for seven days in the Babupurwa police station area and extorted Rs 11.21 lakh while posing as telecom officials and senior police officers.The victim, Rajesh Kumar Shukla (65), a resident of Kidwai Nagar, has filed a report at Babupurwa Kotwali after he was threatened with being implicated in hawala transactions and forced to transfer money to accounts specified by the accused. Shukla previously worked in cash collection at a cooperative bank and has stayed at home since the bank closed in 2013.On April 6, a caller contacted him on his mobile and claimed to be from Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited. The caller said four SIM cards were registered in Shukla’s name and that hawala transactions were being conducted through four bank accounts linked to those SIMs. He was threatened with imprisonment.According to the victim, the fraudster called him on WhatsApp the next day and identified himself as Virendra, claiming to be an ACP with the Bandra Crime Branch. He spoke in a highly abusive manner. To make Shukla believe the claims, he showed a fake digital arrest order and sent a forged copy of an FIR on WhatsApp. He then pressured him to answer a video call, threatening to send police to his home shortly.When Shukla answered the call, a police officer was seen sitting in his office. The caller threatened to implicate him in a serious case and send him to jail. Out of fear, Shukla fell into the trap.According to the victim, the accused said his accounts had hawala money that would be investigated, and told him to transfer the amount to an account they specified. They claimed that if the money was found legitimate, it would be returned by Apr 13.Out of fear, Shukla transferred Rs 10.23 lakh to an account on Apr 9 and Rs 98,000 via Google Pay on Apr 11. After this, the accused stopped calling. On realising he had been defrauded, he filed a report on the NCRB portal.DCP Deependra Nath Chaudhary said efforts were being made to trace the accused through call details and bank transactions.
