A 73-year-old woman from Vile Parle, Mumbai, was cheated out of Rs 2.89 crore by cyber criminals who pretended to be big government officials. After receiving the complain of the fraud Mumbai Police acted quickly and managed to get back Rs 1.29 crore.
The scam happened between Monday and Wednesday. The fraudsters first called her on WhatsApp, acting as officials from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). They scared her by saying there were suspicious money transactions from her bank account. Then, another person, pretending to be a policeman, told her she was connected to a businessman under investigation for fraud and threatened her with something called a “digital arrest”—basically saying she would be cut off digitally and face legal trouble if she didn’t cooperate.
The scammers didn’t stop there. They made a video call, this time pretending to be a judge, and convinced her that transferring money was the only way to avoid arrest. Out of fear, the woman transferred a total of Rs 2.89 crore to the accounts they gave her, all within three days.
After realising she had been tricked, she quickly called the 1930 cyber helpline, which is set up to help cybercrime victims. The police registered her complaint on the national cybercrime portal and swung into action. Because she reported the crime so quickly, the cyber police were able to freeze Rs 1.29 crore before the scammers could take it out.
Mumbai Police are still working to recover the remaining money. They also warned people specially senior citizen to be vigilant and not transfer any money to anyone threating them of digital arrest as their is no law that allows police to arrest someone digitally.
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