Pune: A retired mental health consultant (83) fell for a digital arrest fraud and lost Rs 28.5 lakh to cybercrooks in Feb.
The victim stays with his son in Dhayari while his other son is settled abroad. He exhausted his savings and fixed deposit (FD). The fraud came to light a few months later when the victim’s family realized that the money was missing and asked the victim about it.
He narrated the incident about losing the money and being digitally arrested for two days to his family. Later, his family prompted the victim to register a complaint with the cybercrime police.Senior inspector Dilip Dhaingade of Sinhagad Road police told TOI, “Post-verification, the cyber police referred the matter to us and we registered an FIR on Monday.
The FIR stated that the victim was made to sit in front of his laptop camera for two days by the fraudsters. The elderly man stayed inside his room and had to take permission to move out of the room,” Dhaingade added.One of the crooks contacted the victim claiming that he was a finance officer of a special task force in New Delhi. He further told the victim that they were investigating a case pertaining to a foreign-bound parcel with the victim’s name as the sender.
The conman also told the victim that the parcel had drugs, other contrabands, several passports and Aadhar cards.
They told him that the courier company found these materials and alerted the special task force. “The victim told them that he did not send any parcel, but the suspects claimed they had ample proof that he did send the parcel,” Dhaingade said.
The crook told the senior citizen that the latter’s Aadhaar card and bank details had been misused in the matter and that he must undergo a verification process to clear his name.
The crook got the victim connected with another person on a videocall. Fraudsters asked the victim to transfer money to four private bank accounts for verification purposes. Police now traced these accounts to Gurugram and Delhi. The victim followed the instructions, police said.
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