Pune: The Cyber Police Station of the Pune City Police Commissionerate has arrested two individuals for allegedly defrauding a senior citizen of nearly Rs 11 crore by posing as federal agents and using the “digital arrest” tactic.
The arrested suspects have been identified as Harshad Subhash Dhantole (23) and Samarth Suresh Deshmukh (24), both currently residing in Karve Nagar and originally from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar.
According to the investigation, Dhantole and Deshmukh contacted the senior citizen via mobile, posing as officers from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). They intimidated the victim by claiming his bank account had been used for black money transactions and warned him that he was under “digital arrest” by the CBI.
The fraudsters further threatened that his family members would also be arrested unless they immediately transferred funds into specified bank accounts. Fearing legal action, the senior citizen transferred a staggering Rs 10,74,00,000 to the accounts provided by the scammers. Upon realising he had been cheated, the victim filed a complaint at the Cyber Police Station.
The police initiated an investigation by conducting a technical analysis of the bank accounts where the money was deposited. They discovered that the suspects had withdrawn portions of the cash from various ATMs across the city. By scrutinising CCTV footage from these ATMs, the Cyber Police team successfully tracked down and arrested Dhantole and Deshmukh. Authorities have since seized Rs 4.78 lakh in cash from the duo.
In addition to the cash seizure, the police have frozen Rs 40 lakh held in the suspects’ bank accounts.
