4 min readAhmedabadUpdated: Aug 18, 2026 05:42 AM IST
Three FIRs were filed against him at the State Cybercrime Police station of CID Crime, while at least five other complaints were filed against him at police stations in other states. (Express photo)
The Cyber Centre of Excellence (CCoE) of Gujarat Police has used a live ‘digital arrest’ to not only apprehend a gang member based in Assam handling the layering of proceeds of crime through various bank accounts, but also managed to save lakhs of rupees of 10 persons across four states of India.
On August 9, a senior citizen from Ahmedabad, who had retired from government service, approached the CCoE on the recommendation of an IAS officer and expressed doubts that he was under ‘digital arrest’. Upon checking the messages sent to the senior citizen, who had allegedly been under digital arrest for at least 7 days, officials found fake/forged summons letters purportedly of the Supreme Court.
Speaking to The Indian Express, S P Vivek Bheda of the CCoE said that the Ahmedabad man had been threatened by cyber criminals impersonating Nashik Police claiming that he was involved in child pornography.
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“The senior citizen almost fell into their trap. The miscreants were calling him and keeping him on call for 3-4 hours every day and the complainant had already transferred all the money in his wife’s bank account into his own in order to transfer Rs 20 lakh to the impersonators,” Bheda said.
“Fortunately, he approached us on time,” the SP said.
The CCoE, however, used the digital arrest as an opportunity. “We made the complainant pretend that he was still under digital arrest and kept playing along with the impersonators. We made him transfer Rs 200 for verification. For this, they gave him a bank account number,” the SP said. Using the account number, cyber sleuths swung into action.
“We found that the bank account was being operated from Barpeta, Assam. We soon dispatched a team to Assam. The team confirmed the suspect as Rafikul Alam, 25, a resident of Sanchuka, Barpeta, Assam. On August 16 (Sunday), he was detained, and brought to Gujarat on a transit warrant,” the SP said.
Victims in other states, fake terror funding & investment cases
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Three FIRs were filed against him at the State Cybercrime Police station of CID Crime, while at least five other complaints were filed against him at police stations in other states.
The CCoE, while keeping a close watch on the transactions in this particular bank account, found that Rs 50 lakh was deposited in it by other victims. “We traced the persons who deposited the money and sent our teams to eight places and stopped them from sending any more money,” the SP said.
These victims include three persons in Jamnagar, one in Surat and one in Ahmedabad – all in Gujarat; a person from Mumbai, Maharashtra; one from Raipur, Chhattisgarh; and three persons in Sundargarh and Bhubaneswar districts of Odisha.
Officials said that the Surat person had already sent Rs10 lakh to the fraudsters and sold his shop to pay another Rs 20 lakh, which was stopped in time. The Surat man had been threatened in the name of ED in a fake terror funding case. Another person in Jamnagar had already sent Rs 9.5 lakh to the bank account after being threatened with a fake investment case and was about to send Rs10 lakh more when a CCoE team stopped it.
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The CCoE has found transactions to the tune of Rs1,000 crore through the bank account.
SP Bheda said, “We found 1,754 other accounts used for layering these proceeds of crime with transactions hitting Rs 1,071.55 crore in 1,090 cybercrime cases. They were transferring the money from the main account to these layered accounts in split seconds in tranches of Rs 3,000 each.”
The police also found 23 cryptocurrency wallets from which transactions worth Rs16 crore had been carried out. This money, Bheda said, was possibly being sent to China and the CCoE allegedly found messages of the arrested accused with a phone contact listed as “China Ma’am 4”.
The absconding callers are believed to be in Cambodia, said officials, adding that this was just the tip of the iceberg.
Brendan Dabhi works with The Indian Express, focusing his comprehensive reporting primarily on Gujarat. He covers the region's most critical social, legal, and administrative sectors, notably specializing at the intersection of health, social justice, and disasters.
Expertise
Health and Public Policy: He has deep expertise in healthcare issues, including rare diseases, Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), the complex logistics of organ transplants, and public health challenges like drug-resistant TB and heat health surveillance. His on-ground reporting during the COVID-19 pandemic and Mucormycosis was critical in exposing healthcare challenges faced by marginalized communities in Gujarat.
Social Justice and Legal Administration: He reports on the functioning of the legal and police system, including the impact of judicial philosophy, forensics and crucial administrative reforms (. He covers major surveillance and crackdown exercises by the Gujarat police and security on the international border.
Disaster and Crisis Management: His work closely tracks how government and civic bodies respond to large-scale crises, providing essential coverage on the human and administrative fallout of disasters including cyclones, floods, conflict, major fires and reported extensively on the AI 171 crash in Ahmedabad.
Civic Infrastructure and Governance: Provides timely reports on critical civic failures, including large scale infrastructure projects by the railways and civic bodies, as well as the enforcement of municipal regulations and their impact on residents and heritage. ... Read More
