A 76-year-old retired professor from Bavdhan, Pune, allegedly lost Rs 1.70 crore to fraudsters posing as telecom officials and Mumbai police officers in a digital arrest scam, while the Pimpri Chinchwad cyber cell has blocked Rs 27 lakh of the transferred funds.
According to Pimpri Chinchwad police, the fraud took place between August 20 and October 11. The woman, who lives alone in a flat while her two daughters live nearby, approached the police after the callers became unreachable and the money was not returned.
Inspector Digambar Gaikwad told the Times of India that the woman first received a call from an unknown number on August 20. The caller claimed to be from the telecom department and alleged that several complaints had been filed against her phone number for sending obscene videos and messages. She was told that she would be arrested and should expect a call from the police.
She later received a video call from another unknown number. The second caller allegedly identified himself as a Mumbai police officer and accused her of being involved in a money-laundering racket. He claimed that money linked to the alleged racket had entered her bank account.
The caller showed her what police described as a fabricated Supreme Court arrest warrant and a copy of an alleged complaint. He then offered to help her and asked for details of her savings, fixed deposits, investments and gold jewellery, police said.
The woman was allegedly instructed to break her fixed deposits, mortgage her jewellery and deposit the proceeds into her bank account. She was then told to transfer the funds to different bank accounts for verification, with an assurance that the money would be returned within three days.
“She believed him and transferred Rs 1.70 crore to more than six bank accounts through 18 transactions,” Inspector Gaikwad told the newspaper. The transfers were made over the period covered by the investigation, according to the report.
The woman did not initially tell her daughters because she was afraid of the consequences of the alleged police action. She became suspicious when the money was not returned and the callers’ mobile numbers stopped working. She then informed her daughter, who approached the police.
The Pimpri Chinchwad cyber cell has managed to block Rs 27 lakh of the defrauded amount, Gaikwad said. Police have also sought transaction details from the woman’s bank as part of their investigation.
The case highlights how digital arrest frauds can combine impersonation, fabricated legal documents and threats of immediate arrest to pressure victims into transferring savings. In this case, the alleged fraud extended beyond a single bank transfer and involved fixed deposits, investments and jewellery proceeds.
The next steps in the case are the examination of bank transaction records and further investigation into the accounts that received the money. Police action to trace the callers and assess the recoverable amount will depend on the financial and transaction details obtained by the cyber cell.
