Mumbai: Posing as police, the scammer extracted Rs 2.57 crore from a 74-year-old woman after trapping her in a digital arrest scam and threatening to implicate her son in a money laundering case if their demands were not met.
According to the police, the incident occurred between February 15 and March 12. It all started when the complainant, a resident of Pune, received a call from an unknown person who claimed that her Aadhaar card information had been misused to open a bank account for money laundering.
Claiming to be a senior inspector in the Nashik police force, the scammer also shared a bogus Enforcement Directorate (ED) notice with the senior citizen, warning that she is under surveillance of law agencies. The fraud also threatened the complainant that if she would not cooperate, they would implicate her son, said the police.
Thereafter, the scammer inquired about the woman's savings and investments and instructed her to transfer money in different accounts. Terrified, she paid the amount in over 60 online transactions.
As the demand for money kept continuing, the elderly narrated her ordeal to her relatives who told her that she had been scammed. A team under the supervision of inspector Nandkumar Gopale is working on the case.
