Just months before a 72-year-old man in Mumbai fell prey to a Rs 58-crore digital arrest scam, one of the largest cyber cons in the country, he received Rs 50 crore for liquidating his shares in a pharmaceutical company where he was a partner, The Indian Express has learnt.
While the money came into his account “earlier this year”, officers associated with the probe told this newspaper, the man was first contacted via video call by digital scamsters on August 19. Subsequently, sources said, the scamsters forced the victim to visit four banks where he held accounts for 27 days across a 40-day period to transfer money to various “mule accounts” while they listened in on an “active phone call” to “keep a tab”.
“The victim fell for the scam because he believed it was linked to the money he had received earlier this year,” an officer said.
The Maharashtra Cyber police, which is probing the case, arrested seven persons in the case on Wednesday and Thursday. “The fake video calls, we suspect, were made from Rajasthan and Gujarat while the seven persons arrested so far in the case are from in and around Mumbai. These are basically people who provided their bank accounts to move money around in exchange for a commission,” DIG Sanjay Shintre, from Maharashtra Cyber police, said.
Detailing the initial days of the scam, and the events that followed, sources said the victim received the first call from a scamster who identified himself as an official from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). The victim was told that his mobile phone had been used to send illegal messages and that the crime branch was probing his account for links to money laundering, sources said.
“It began a 40-day torture period for him and his wife, who had worked earlier in the banking sector. During this period, he visited four banks across 27 days with an active phone call ongoing so that law enforcement agencies could keep a tab on him. At home he would be in front of his mobile camera under digital arrest. The scamsters used fake police stations and courts to convince the victims that they were dealing with a law enforcement agency,” sources said.
According to sources, the scamsters told the victim that there were “illegal funds” in his bank account and sent him “some documents” to claim that they were “genuine officers”. The accused asked the complainant and his wife to transfer funds to their account so that they can verify the money was genuine after which it would be transferred back to their accounts, sources said.
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Between August 19 and September 29, the complainant and his wife transferred Rs 58.13 crore through RTGS to various bank accounts provided by the accused.
“They (the victim and his wife) did not inform anyone, either the banks, their neighbours or even their two children studying abroad. It was when the fraudsters demanded the last Rs 2 crore kept in his wife’s account (on September 30) that they checked with a friend who told them they had been defrauded,” the sources said.
It took the couple 11 more days to approach the cyber police with the complaint — a gap that officers said could have played a big difference in the amount of money they eventually managed to recoup. So far, the police have managed to trace and block Rs 3.5 crore of the stolen money.
Speaking about the case, Yashasvi Yadav, Additional Director General (ADG) in Maharashtra Cyber police, said, “Soon after they submitted a complaint, we carried out an exhaustive analysis of banking transactions, KYC records and statements of multiple linked accounts. This revealed a complex network of over 6,500 money mule accounts spread across 13 layers. These were predominantly current accounts opened in the names of shell companies to facilitate high-value transactions without scrutiny.”
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An officer said that in some cases, withdrawals were made by the scamsters from banks using cheques to break the link of accounts across which the money had been transferred. “After withdrawing the money by cheque, they would deposit it in another account of the same bank, which was not linked to the other accounts and cannot be traced,” the officer said.
The probe continues with nine police teams working on the case.
