Special teams arrest 13 across seven districts involved in ‘digital arrests’

The official said these are mule account holders who provide their account details to cyber fraudsters who use it to transfer money across various accounts and eventually convert it into crypto currency and send it outside the country.

Till October this year, 142 cases of ‘digital arrests’ have taken place in the city in which Rs 114 crore have been lost to cyber criminals. (Source: Pexels)

Special teams formed by the Mumbai Police to track down the accused in ‘digital arrest’ cases have nabbed 13 accused across seven districts of the state in the past 10 days. A total of 13 special teams were formed by the police on November 18 in order to counter the rising number of digital arrest cases in the city over the year.

Till October this year, 142 cases of ‘digital arrests’ have taken place in the city in which Rs 114 crore have been lost to cyber criminals. While there is no concept of ‘digital arrest’ in law, fraudsters pretending to be from agencies like CBI, ED, call up senior citizens and put them under ‘digital arrest’ on grounds that their account is used for fraud.

An official said teams fanned out to Solapur, Pune, Nagpur, Satara and Nashik apart from looking for accused within the city and nearby areas. “After instructions from senior officers that cases of digital arrest be probed on priority, we formed 13 teams and they were sent to the addresses of people whose bank accounts had been used by cyber fraudsters to transfer fraudulently obtained money,” the official added. Accordingly, three accused were arrested from Nashik and Mumbai, two from Mumbai and one each from other districts.

The official said these are mule account holders who provide their account details to cyber fraudsters who use it to transfer money across various accounts and eventually convert it into crypto currency and send it outside the country. Usually, the mule account holders are given a certain percentage of the amount.

Since senior citizens have been targeted in digital arrest cases, the Mumbai police teams earlier this month prepared a database of senior citizens staying alone and sent officers to their houses to alert them. The initiative had been started from south Mumbai where 627 senior citizens were found to be residing alone in Zone 1.

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