Cyber thugs dupe man of Rs 2L through ‘digital arrest’

Gurugram, June 12

A resident of Sector 9 was ‘digitally arrested’ by cyber criminals for about three hours. They questioned him on the pretext of his ‘involvement’ in a money laundering case.

After the digital arrest through a video call, the cyber thugs also got Rs 2 lakh transferred from him. An FIR was registered at the Cyber West police station.

According to the complaint filed by Ranjeev Kumar of Surya Vihar, Sector 9, on May 25, he got an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) call. The caller said he would block all his numbers linked with his Aadhar card.

He asked the victim to press 9 and dial customer care number and dial 1 to report theft. When he pressed 1, they connected him to customer support and informed him that his Aadhar card was linked with another number and many fraudulent activities were happening from his number.

“Soon after they forwarded my number to the Mumbai police. A man impersonating a police official later called me on WhatsApp and told me that I was involved in money laundering involving a transaction of around Rs 6 crore,” he said.

“They said they received my Canara Bank debit card with my name in the house of Naresh Goel who is the head of this case. They asked me to comply with their instructions or they will send the police to my house,” he added.

“After talking with me for 2 hours, they asked me to transfer money to an account so that they could check if my account was fraudulent. I deposited Rs 2 lakh in the account of Maa Parwati Tiles and Marbles of IndusInd Bank Branch Jagdishpur in Bihar,” he added.