Interstate "Digital Arrest" Fraud Racket Busted In Delhi, 4 Arrested

Delhi Police on Saturday claimed to have busted an interstate 'digital arrest' fraud and arrested four people, including a woman and her son, from the national capital region.

'Digital arrest' is a new cyber fraud, where the accused pose as law enforcement agency officials, like CBI or customs officials, and threatens people of arrest by making video calls in the name of fake international parcels of banned drugs, they said.

According to Deputy Commissioner of Police (IFSO, The Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations) Hemant Tiwari, the latest victim of 'digital arrest' fraud was a 65-year-old retired senior manager from Air India, Anjana Chakravarty.

Hemant Tiwari said Anjana Chakravarty told police that she received a call from the DHL Express courier company informing her that a parcel allegedly sent by her in the name of John David in Cambodia had been seized by the Mumbai Customs, which contains 150 gram MDMA drug, 20 Passports, 3 Credit Cards, a laptop and 4.5 kg cloths.

Anjana Chakravarty was further told that the callee then connected her to another person through a WhatsApp video call, who introduced himself as a police officer and when she insisted on knowing if he was a police or CBI official they momentarily showed her a cabin where two policemen were present following which she assumed that they were real police officer, he said.

The fraudsters duped her of Rs 35 lakh pretending to be CBI officials, Hemant Tiwari said.

Another officer said soon after registering an FIR, a team of IFSO swung into action and conducted raids in different parts of Delhi and Uttar Pradesh and arrested four accused persons.

Choudhoury Sanjay Kumar Das was arrested from Nangloi, Khushbu Khan and her son Asif Khan from Greater Noida and Abhay Singh from Hardoi, Uttar Pradesh, the officer said.

A car, laptop, eight mobile phones, four chequebooks and 4 ATM cards were recovered from their possession, Hemant Tiwari said.

He said the accused were part of an organised gang headed by Khushbu Khan who would arrange the fake SIM cards and multiple bank accounts opened on forged documents.

For syphoning off the cheated amount, they used many fake bank accounts and further transferred the money to fraudsters based abroad, the officer said.

Police said Das is responsible for operating the bank account opened on forged documents to transfer the cheated amount further to various bank accounts to create a chain of money transfers.

Police also issued an advisory that people should not believe any random calls and should always check the legitimacy and genuineness of the CBI or any other higher police officials who are posing as officers over the phone should be checked from credible sources and should not be sharing personal details such as Aadhar card, bank OTP's, and other details to unknown persons over the call. 

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