Indore (Madhya Pradesh): The city crime branch arrested an on-the-run suspect of an interstate gang from Gujarat involved in an online fraud of Rs 40.70 lakh from a senior citizen through a “digital arrest” scam, an official said on Thursday.
Additional DCP Rajesh Dandotiya said the suspect, identified as Piyush Parmar from Surat, was arrested by the crime branch team following a specific tip-off. Police have also frozen 23 bank accounts linked to the online fraud.
A 71-year-old retired man filed a complaint on the NCRP portal stating that he received a WhatsApp call on Oct 3, 2024. The caller falsely claimed to be a police officer from the Banda police station and alleged that the victim had made a transaction of Rs 2.60 crore through a nationalised bank account in Mumbai. The caller further claimed that the complainant had received a 15% commission from that transaction and could be arrested by the police and the CBI for investigation in the case.
To make the claim believable, the fraudsters sent fake documents and threatened the complainant with arrest. The caller then connected the victim on a conference call with another person posing as a CBI officer named Akash Kulkarni. The complainant was asked to share details of his bank accounts and was told to transfer his money to RBI accounts for verification so that he could be cleared in the investigation.
Out of fear, the victim broke his fixed deposits and transferred a total of Rs 40.70 lakh in several transactions. When the money was not returned, he realised that he had been cheated and later filed a complaint.
Based on the complaint, the crime branch registered a case under various sections of the BNS and began an investigation. Earlier, two suspects from Gujarat, Himmatbhai Devani from Surat and Atul Giri Goswami from Kutch, had already been arrested in the case. During further investigation and technical analysis, the crime branch team tracked and arrested Parmar from Surat.
Police said the suspect allegedly admitted that he used to arrange bank accounts for the gang to receive money from fraud victims. The gang members allegedly called hundreds of people daily while posing as police or investigation officers and threatened them with fake legal cases to extort money.
The arrested suspect has been taken on police remand and is being questioned to identify other members of the gang and gather more details about the fraud network operating in different states.
