Mumbai woman duped of ₹3.8 crore in ‘longest’ digital arrest case in India: Report

A 77-year-old woman from Mumbai was duped of Rs. 3.8 crore by scammers posing as law enforcement officers. The scammers kept the women under digital arrest for a month, the longest ever recorded since these kinds of scams started according to a report by NDTV

Scammers did this in the guise of a fake money laundering case against the woman and it all started when she got a WhatsApp call.

The woman, said to be a homemaker living with her husband in South Mumbai, received a call claiming that a parcel she allegedly sent to Taiwan was intercepted.

Scammers posing as police officers claimed that the said parcel contained 5 passports, about 4 kilograms of clothes, a drug called MDMA and a bank card, according to Mumbai Crime Branch.

The scammers also sent the woman a fake crime branch notice. When the woman said that she hadn't sent any parcel, she was told that her Aadhaar card details were used to do so and her call was transferred to a fake police officer claiming to be with the Crime Branch, who also parroted the same story.

The 77-year-old woman was asked to download Skype and got a call from a man claiming to be IPS officer Anand Rana. She was also told that she couldn't disconnect the call or tell anyone else about the case.

Another man, this time saying he was from the finance department, also joined the call and asked the woman to transfer money into an account shared by the scammers. He said it was a part of the investigation and the money would be returned if she was found innocent.

A month long ordeal

The woman was kept on the call for 24 hours and if the call got disconnected, the scammers would call again and threaten her. At first she transferred Rs. 15 lakh. After going to and fro for a month, a total of Rs. 3.8 crores were taken. After not hearing about the money and the case, the woman shared it with her daughter and thus it all came to light.

Digital Arrest has been a kind of scam where people are sent fake notices from law enforcement agencies and duped of money in the guise of an investigation.

There have been numerous cases till now with government agencies constantly warning common people to stay vigilant.