6 Months After Woman Duped Of ₹46 Lakh Via ‘Digital Arrest’, Man Nabbed From Delhi’s ‘Dark Room’

Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Finally, the police managed to reach the ‘Dark Room’ from where the scammers used to dupe people after holding them digitally arrested. The police arrested a man in Delhi for duping a city woman of Rs 46 lakh through ‘digital arrest’ six months ago. On Friday, the alleged scammer, 22-year-old Ritik Kumar Jatav, gave the police a live demonstration of how his gang duped people. 

Data of about 20,000 people from across India including 6,000 from the city, most of them elderly , was also recovered from the accused and police have launched a manhunt for the search of his aides. The data includes Aadhaar number, PAN details, job profiles, and family details.

Woman duped in September The 65-year-old woman was duped in the first week of September. The caller had allegedly contacted her through a WhatsApp call.

Claiming that he was calling from the TRAI headquarters in Delhi, he alleged that the woman’s mobile phone was used in illegal advertising and harassment, so a case was registered against her. Then he disconnected the call.  

After that, another person claiming to be a CBI officer called up the complainant and said a parcel carrying drugs was sent to Cambodia using her Aadhaar card details. The accused claimed to have arrested her digitally and allegedly conned her into sending Rs 46 lakh in two transactions.

According to DCP (crime) Rajesh Kumar Tripathi, the police arrested Ali Ahmad Khan, the manager of a madarsa committee in Kannauj, UP, and Asad Ahmad Khan, his assistant manager, on December 5 in connection with the case. The accused had allegedly provided the bank account details of the madarsa committee to the scammers in exchange for a 50% commission on the amount received through such cons.

Further investigation revealed the location of the accused to be in Patel Nagar, Delhi. When the crime branch reached the place, it was difficult to zero in on the exact location due to congestion. Different teams of the crime branch got information about all those selling SIM cards, recharging mobile phones, tea stalls, snacks, paan shops, canopies around all the buildings, and kept a close watch on the accused for five days.

After getting technical information and conducting a recce of the spot, the police raided the dark room from where senior citizens were being targeted across the country and conned via ‘digital arrests’.  While Jatav was arrested, police also recovered two fixed wireless phones, 10 diaries with scripts to dupe people, a monitor, a printer, seven keypad mobile phones, and a network booster.

Jatav, who claims to be a graduate, is being questioned for his partners in the scam. Police said the accused used about 500 SIM cards to dupe people last year. The gang had been operating from there since 2019. The gang had also managed to have more than a dozen mobile phones with the same IMEI through cloning, they said.