A 92-year-old retired surgeon was reimbursed Rs 2.2 crore which he had lost to fraudsters, thanks to the efforts by Delhi Police’s Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (DFSO) which arrested two suspects involved in the digital arrest scam, a senior official said on Thursday.
“The action was followed by a complaint from the senior citizen who claimed receiving multiple unsolicited calls from various numbers and the callers impersonated themselves as officials from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and the Maharashtra Police, falsely claiming that several FIRs had been registered against the victim,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (IFSO Special cell) Hemant Tiwari said.
The victim was subjected to digital arrest, shown forged court orders, and coerced into participating in what the accused termed as virtual hearing which was actually an overwhelming fake and manipulative series of incidents, Tiwari said.
The cop mentioned that after the complaint, a case under section 308(2), 318(4), 319(2), 61(2), and 3(5), related to cheating, extortion and criminal conspiracy of BNS was registered and investigation was taken up.
Based on the digital footprints and technical analysis, the accused Amit (42) and Hari (27), who were operating fraudulent bank accounts were arrested from Ghaziabad and Guwahati.
The Cop mentioned that the syndicate impersonated as officials from the Police, CBI, Customs, and other government bodies would inform victims that multiple FIRs were registered against them.
Initially, they threatened the victims with arrest and severe penalties, but later shifted to a more sympathetic tone, suggesting it could be a case of mistaken identity and to resolve the issue, they instructed the victims to lodge a formal complaint and transfer their savings into specified accounts for “verification,” falsely promising that the funds would be refunded after the verification process.