Maharashtra Cyber Police Arrests 2 More In ₹58 Crore ‘Digital Arrest’ Scam; Probe Tracks 20,000 Mule Accounts Across 13 Layers

Mumbai: Two more persons have been arrested by Maharashtra Cyber police on Thursday in a Rs 58 crore digital arrest fraud case. Total persons arrested in the case now are 29. The arrested persons identified as Katunga Raj Kumar (54) and Vikram Singh Parmar (37) were nabbed from Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat.

Victim Duped Through Fake TRAI and Crime Branch Calls

In the instant case, the complainant received a call from an international number impersonating a Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) officer. The caller alleged that the victim’s mobile number was being misused to send illegal messages.

The call was then transferred to another individual posing as an officer from the Mumbai Crime Branch, who falsely claimed that the victim’s bank accounts were being used for money laundering activities.

Under this fabricated narrative, the victim was told that to avoid a “digital arrest,” he must transfer funds to a designated account, which would be refunded after a so-called “verification procedure.”

To lend credibility to the fraud, the accused orchestrated an elaborate fake police station and court proceeding via video calls, with other fraudsters impersonating police officials and even court judges.

Believing the staged proceedings to be genuine, the victim, under fear and psychological pressure, transferred a total of Rs 58.13 crore over a span of 40 days, losing his entire life savings, police said.

Technical Trails Reveal Sophisticated Cyber Setup

Taking cognizance of the matter, Maharashtra Cyber initiated a multi-pronged investigation. Technical and financial trails were pursued simultaneously. Call Detail Records (CDR), Subscriber Detail Records (SDR), Customer Acquisition Forms (CAF), and Internet Protocol Detail Records (IPDR) of the fraudulent numbers were obtained and analyzed.

The technical analysis revealed that the calls originated from foreign IP addresses routed through VPNs and TOR networks, confirming the use of sophisticated anonymization techniques.

20,000 Money Mule Accounts Traced Across 13 Layers

On the financial front, an exhaustive analysis of banking transactions, KYC records, and statements of multiple linked accounts revealed a complex network of over 20,000 money mule accounts spread across 13 layers.

These were predominantly current accounts opened in the names of shell companies to facilitate high-value transactions without scrutiny. Through detailed financial forensics, Maharashtra

Cyber successfully traced the end beneficiaries of several of these accounts, leading to the arrest of seven accused individuals," the officer said.

These individuals were directly linked to the fraudulent financial network, having either opened or operated money mule accounts in their names, received proceeds in the initial layers of transactions, or facilitated fund movement by sourcing and managing such accounts for the syndicate.

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Poor Individuals Exploited as Mule Account Holders

"Probe has revealed that poor people or people with some urgency are made mule account holders by scammers and the scammers take control of their accounts to park money generated from crime. Bank officials are at fault as they are not taking any due diligence to curb use of mule accounts. In the current case the victim had visited his bank 27 times and made transfers worth crores of rupees but the bank officials did not smell anything foul," said a police officer privy to the probe.

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