Mumbai: A senior citizen couple from Cuffe Parade lost a whopping Rs 3.8 crore to fake cops, who kept fleecing them for a month after trapping them in the digital arrest scam. Such con deploys fear as a tactic to extort money from targets by falsely accusing them of illegal activities and threatening arrest.
In this case involving a 77-year-old woman and her 75-year-old husband, the frauds kept them under constant surveillance via video calls and asked them not to step out if they didn't want to be arrested.
The vicious cycle started when the woman received a WhatsApp call in July and the caller told her that a suspicious parcel, destined for Taiwan, had been intercepted in her name. The consignment contained MDMA drugs, five passports, a bank card and 4 kg of clothes, said the fraud.
Executing the next step of the fraud, the gang falsely accused the woman of letting her Aadhaar card be used for money laundering. The scammers told her that she could face 10 years of imprisonment.
Not stopping here, they even created fake documents to support their claims and sent them to her. They further intimidated her with threats of arrest and made her download Skype on laptop for regular video calls.
Between July 22 and August 23, several frauds posing as cops contacted the couple from different numbers. Every time, they kept changing their identities and introduced themselves as Amit Singh, Anand Rana and George Mathew.
On the pretext of investigation, Rana extracted personal information from the couple and made them transfer Rs3,80,57,375 into specified bank accounts, claiming it was for the verification purposes. To exert mental pressure, the fake cops repeatedly threatened them with legal action and arrest.
The couple's ordeal finally ended when they confided in their daughter, who lives abroad. She urged them to immediately seek the police's help. Based on their complaint, the south cyber police station has registered an FIR under relevant sections of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita as well as the Information Technology Act. According to the police officials, no arrests have been made yet.
