In the largest individual cyber fraud ever registered with Pune City police, a 59-year-old senior IT executive from Pashan lost a staggering Rs 6.29 crore — nearly his entire life savings — to online criminals who posed as CBI officers.
The fraudsters threatened action in connection with a money laundering case, placing him under ‘digital arrest’ at his home and forcing him to remain on video call over several hours on the pretext of ‘surveillance.’
An FIR was registered at the cyber crime police station of Pune City on Wednesday by the 59-year-old resident of Pashan in Pune, who currently works at a top executive position at an IT company in Mumbai.
The complainant underwent the ordeal for over a week, starting from November 9.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (cyber and economic offences) Vivek Masal said: “The complainant was approached by cyber criminals posing as CBI officers. They told him that his role was being probed in a money laundering case. On the pretext of conducting the probe, all his personal and financial information was sought by the cyber criminals. He was asked to stay at home, not communicate with anyone and remain under what they said was digital arrest. The cyber criminals asked him to liquidate all his fixed deposits, investments and transfer all the funds to various fraudulent accounts — saying those were accounts of the RBI — on the pretext of verification. All over four-five days, he was asked to remain on video call as part of the digital arrest.”
Inspector Swapnali Shinde of the cyber crime police station said: “The cyber criminals had the victim so terrorised…they asked him to keep the video call on even when he went to the bank to liquidate his fixed deposits and investments. The bank officials, who became suspicious as to why the victim was suddenly liquidating his assets, kept asking him the reason. Despite their repeated insistence, the victim did not divulge anything and ended up sending Rs 6.29 crore in five large transactions to mule accounts of cyber criminals. It was only when he mentioned this to some of his family members that he realised he fell for a cyber fraud. This is the largest-ever individual cyber crime registered with the Pune city police. Some other jurisdictions have reported amounts larger than this in cases of digital arrests.”
DCP Masal added: “When the complainant approached us, he was traumatised and under tremendous mental stress. We counselled him and guided him through the process of registering the FIR. We have launched a coordinated probe in the case.”
The Indian Express had earlier reported that at the heart these scams are multilayered and geographically distributed multi-national syndicates, siphoning money from unsuspecting victims to mule accounts and funnelling it to international cyber masterminds through the cryptocurrency route.
In an advisory issued about such online blackmail cases, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued a notification in May stating, “A large number of complaints are being reported on National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP) regarding intimidation, blackmail, extortion and “Digital Arrests” by cyber criminals posing as Police Authorities, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Narcotics Department, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Enforcement Directorate and other Law Enforcement Agencies.” These frauds were also highlighted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently in his ‘Mann Ki Baat’ programme.
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