The Mumbai Cyber Crime Police have arrested a 27-year-old man who was allegedly part of a syndicate that is involved in a digital arrest scam. A retired director of a private company was duped by scammers to the tune of Rs 90 lakh in a digital arrest fraud. Probe revealed that some part of the money extorted from the complainant was transferred to the bank account of the arrested person.
The arrested person has been identified as Sohail Bashir Shaikh, a resident of JP Road in Andheri.
According to the police sources, the crime was committed during the period of December 20, last year till January 01. The complainant, a resident of Nepean Sea Road, had received messages and phone calls from an unknown number. The caller identified himself as inspector Arun Kumar from Delhi Cyber Crime department.
The caller further told the complainant that his Aadhar card had been misused to open an unauthorised bank account that was further used for Money Laundering, Investment Fraud and Identity Theft Case. The fraudster then sent a bogus CBI notice to the complainant asking him to transfer money from his bank account to a "Confidential surveillance Account" so that the RBI could verify the genuineness of his transactions.
The fraudster also assured the complainant that once the RBI completes the verification, the money would be transferred back to his bank account within three to four hours. The scammer then induced the complainant to transfer Rs 90 lakh in different beneficiary bank accounts over a period of time. Later when the complainant realised that he had been scammed, he approached the police and got an offence registered in the matter.
A case was registered on January 23 by the South Cyber Crime police under sections 61 (criminal conspiracy), 204 (Personating a public servant), 308 (extortion), 318 (cheating), 319 (cheating by personation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and section 66C (identity theft), 66D (cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act. A team under the supervision of inspector Nandkumar Gopale worked on the case.
"Investigation revealed that Rs 60 lakh that was extorted from the complainant was transferred to a Hyderabad based bank account and from that account, Rs 4.94 lakh was transferred in Shaikh's bank account. The police team tracked him on Tuesday after which he was placed under arrest in the said case," said a police officer.
