Pimpri-Chinchwad: Cyber Police Six Arrested For Duping Senior Citizens Of ₹2.8 Crore Through ‘Digital Arrest’ Scam

Pimpri-Chinchwad: Pimpri-Chinchwad Police have nabbed six accused for duping senior citizens by threatening digital arrests by impersonating officials from the Police Department and a courier service company, officials announced on Wednesday. The arrested accused, nabbed from four different states across the country, are accused of duping people of over Rs 2.80 crores. Pimpri-Chinchwad Police travelled over 5000 km to nab them, said police.  

The action was taken by the Cyber Police Station. Mohammad Amir Akhil Mohammad Aarif (35, Hyderabad), Jigar Jitesh Patel (23, Mumbai), Syed Ovejh Afnan Syed Shaukat (20, Mysuru), Ajith Vijayan (36, Thiruvanathpuram), Mohammad Rehan Mohammad Tajmul (18, Mysuru), and another of their accomplices were detained. The arrests were made from their residence in the states of Karnataka, Kerala, Telangana, and Maharashtra.

Modus Operandi

According to police reports, two separate cases were registered at the Cyber Police Station, both of which included senior citizens. The accused's modus operandi included contacting senior citizens through a WhatsApp video call. They impersonated officers from Blue Dart Courier Service and the Mumbai Police. They manipulated unsuspecting seniors by creating fear by claiming that drugs or other banned substances were found in a parcel in their name. They threatened arrests and told them that if they didn't do anything, they would ‘digitally arrest them’.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Dr Shivaji Pawar said, “The accused are known to portray themselves as senior IPS officers. They would increase credibility by saying they are DCPs and ACPs. They compelled the victims to deposit large sums of money into various accounts for investigation.”

Sources told The Free Press Journal that they often employed a good cop, bad cop strategy (also informally called the Mutt and Jeff technique), where a few officials used to be stringent and very aggressive on the calls. Then another accused, pretending to be a senior official, offered help and manipulated the victims further.  

Police Action & Team

DCP Dr Shivaji Pawar said, “Preliminary investigation has revealed that transactions worth over Rs 7.86 Crore have been carried out through the accused's bank accounts. The prime accused, Mohammed Amir, was also found to be involved in another major fraud case amounting to Rs 58 Crore registered with the Maharashtra Cyber Police. Based on technical investigation, the Cyber Police traced the location of the accused.”

DCP Dr Pawar further said that they had two cases registered against these accused, amounting to Rs 2.80 crores. Continuous operations were conducted in different states, and all the accused were skilfully taken into custody. During interrogation, the accused confessed to the crime, and it was also revealed that 31 complaints from across the country were registered against their accounts. They were detained, and the court has granted police custody to all the accused.

The action was taken under the guidance of Pimpri-Chinchwad Commissioner of Police Vinoy Kumar Choubey, JCP Dr Shashikant Mahavarkar, Addl CP Sarang Awad, DCP Dr Shivaji Pawar, and ACP (Crime 1) Dr Vishal Hire.

The Cyber police team was led by Sr PI Ravikiran Nale, which included API Pravin Swami, PSIs Vaibhav Patil, Sagar Poman, Rohit Dolas, Prakash Katkade, Vidya Patil, Police Constables Deepak Bhosale, Vinayak Mhaskar, Hemant Kharat, Subhash Patil, Kiran Devkar, Shrikant Kabule, Dnyaneshwar Gawali, Atul Lokhande, Sopan Bodhwad, Madhav Arote, Nilesh Deshmukh, Abhijeet Ukirde, Mahesh Motkar, Aniket Temgire, Santosh Sapkal, Deepak Mane, Shubhangi Dhobale, Deepali Chavan, and Swapnil Khanase.