Mumbai: An 85-year-old retired army officer has fallen prey to a digital arrest fraud and ended up losing over Rs 62 lakh to scammers.
According to the police, the complainant is a resident of Pune. As per the victim, on July 19 he had received a phone call from a person claiming to be calling from a bank at Bandra who informed the victim that a credit card has been registered in his name and the same has been used for illegal activity.
After the victim told the caller that he does not have any credit card and has not done any transaction from the credit card, the caller told the victim that he would connect the call to the Mumbai police. Soon after, a person wearing a police uniform spoke to the victim over a video call.
The scammer, who posed as a police officer, told the victim that the police had arrested a terrorist in a money laundering case and he had used the victim's credit card. The scammer also sent a bogus RBI letter on WhatsApp to the victim which stated that the police had been authorised to check the victim's bank account details.
The caller further told the victim that since he is a senior citizen, he can help the police by sitting at home and gave him a bank account number in which he can transfer the money for investigation purposes. Thereafter, from July 20 till July 23, the scammer induced the victim to transfer Rs 62.55 lakh in different beneficiary bank accounts.
After the said amount, the scammer told the victim that the police will inspect his bank accounts transactions and if he is found clean, the money would be returned back to him. Later, when the victim did not receive his money he realised that he had been duped. He then approached the police and got an offence registered in the matter.
