Mumbai: Cyber Police have arrested three men, including Rishi A who claims to be a former Ranji cricketer, from Gujarat for allegedly duping a senior citizen from Aarey Colony of Rs 32.7 lakh in a digital arrest scam. Four people were held earlier in the case, taking the total number of arrests to seven, police said.The three arrested accused — Rishi, Harsh and Nikhil — were allegedly involved in routing the scammed money to the masterminds, said police, adding that Rishi’s father is a cricket coach.The scam dates back to February 11 when the senior citizen received a call from a Tamil-speaking man. The caller claimed he was a “sub-inspector from Chennai Police” and said the senior citizen’s SIM card had been used by terrorist Afzal Khan who was involved in the Pahalgam attack. She was given a case number and the call was transferred to a “senior official”.The next person who spoke to the senior citizen said he was aware she had moved from Tamil Nadu to Mumbai and had information on all her family members. She was asked to get a “non-involvement certificate” from the police and her call was transferred to “Mumbai ATS”.Thereafter, she received a video call from an English-speaking man whose WhatsApp display picture was an “ATS logo”. He was dressed in a police uniform and sat on a chair with several files before him. He asked her to take the phone around the house so he could view every room and ensure only the family was home.Next, the senior citizen was asked to download the Arattai app and modify certain privacy settings. She was sent some documents such as a notice, an FIR, an arrest warrant, and a confidentiality agreement, which later turned out to be fakes. The senior citizen was spooked when the fraudsters said they knew her son was in Berlin and they would arrest him once he returned to Mumbai.Between February 11 and 16, she received several calls from the fraudsters and transferred a total Rs 32.7 lakh to them, when they claimed that her funds would be “verified online by the RBI and returned to her if it was legally hers”. On February 16, her son returned home from Berlin and gathered that she had been scammed. She then approached the Cyber Police through her granddaughter.
