‘Linked to Dawood Ibrahim through former minister’: Pune retd engineer threatened with digital arrest loses Rs 1.75 crore

According to the complaint, on August 18, the man received a WhatsApp video call in which a man claiming to be an officer of the Delhi Crime Branch told him that a parcel sent by him to Dubai had been intercepted and that his Aadhaar identity had been misused. He was told that his name had been flagged in a money laundering case in which 6.8 billion dollars had been sent from his account and that his  link with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim through a former minister in the Maharashtra government had come to light. A while later, the complainant was told that this former Maharashtra minister had been placed under arrest and also showed him a photo of this purported arrest.

The complainant subsequently received a video call from a man claiming to be a CBI officer. This man sought all the information about the complainant’s savings, investments and deposits and also asked about his family members, children and threatened him not to hide anything.

As an intimidation tactic, the complainant said the criminals forced him and his wife to appear on video every now and then saying they were under ‘digital arrest.’ The victim was then asked to liquidate his deposits and investments and send them to ‘government accounts’ for forensic audit for the probe by the Reserve Bank of India into money laundering case. He was told that it was to clear his name from the case.

The complainant was given five bank accounts, to which he was asked to make the transfer. He ended up sending Rs 1.75 crore between August 18 and 22.  He was subsequently told that the money will be deposited back to his account.

However when the complainant’s son got to know about what had happened, he asked the complainant to stop making any further transfers and told him he had been cheated. The victim subsequently approached the police and after a preliminary inquiry, an FIR was registered.

Cyber investigators have expressed concern that despite extensive awareness campaigns and sensitisation efforts by the government and law enforcement agencies, incidents of digital arrest, online extortion and blackmail continue to be reported. In an advisory issued in May last year, the Ministry of Home Affairs had noted a significant rise in complaints related to intimidation, blackmail, extortion, and so-called “digital arrests.” These scams are typically carried out by cyber criminals impersonating officials from law enforcement agencies such as the police, CBI, Narcotics Department, RBI, and Enforcement Directorate and judges.

Such frauds have been serious enough to be flagged at the highest levels, including by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his ‘Mann Ki Baat’ address last year. As previously reported by The India Express, these scams are orchestrated by complex, multilayered syndicates operating across borders. Victims’ money is often funnelled into mule accounts and then routed to international cybercrime networks through cryptocurrency route.