Lucknow’s cyber unit has made its first “digital arrest” by apprehending three criminals posing as “CBI officers” to lure people, officials said.
This group used the ‘digital arrest’ scam to defraud a woman of Rs 2.71 crore and a man of Rs 43 lakh.
“The suspects pretended to be police officers and CBI investigators working on money laundering cases, persuading victims that they were involved in financial crimes,” the officials added.
The plan came together after a caller claimed that a doctor’s wife’s credit card had been used for fraudulent transactions connected to a money laundering case.
She was instructed to stay inside her house and deal with a fictitious CBI agent. She was digitally detained and forced to transfer Rs 2.71 crore during a Skype call.
A police official said, “In a digital arrest, victims are not allowed to leave the device from which the Skype call was made and are threatened with legal action if they disclose the call to family members.”
Threats of a false money laundering case against the other victim, a businessman, also forced him to comply.
The accused include Yashpal Prasad, 24, Keshav Goel, 27, and Sanket Kumar, 24, from Agra.
“Yashpal, a commerce graduate and the mastermind behind the scam, operated from Dubai. He recruited operatives in small cities to use their bank accounts for money transfers, promising them a cut,” said an officer.
