How strange it is in today’s digital era that someone keeps you live on your phone and makes you sit for hours. And the funny thing is that people are forced to do this by obeying a person sitting far away. In simple language, this is called digital arrest. A 77-year-old elderly woman living in South Mumbai has become the victim of this digital arrest. You will be surprised to know that the woman was kept under digital arrest not for one or two hours but for a whole month. By threatening to arrest the woman in a money laundering case, the accused duped her of Rs 3.8 crores.
Talked about getting drugs in the parcel
According to media reports, the woman lives in South Mumbai with her 75-year-old retired husband. While their children live abroad. Meanwhile, one day the woman received a fake WhatsApp call in which she was told that a parcel sent to Taiwan in her name has been seized. Five passports, bank cards, 4 kg clothes and drugs were found in the parcel. The woman told the caller that she had not sent any parcel. On this, the WhatsApp caller said that the details of the Aadhar card are his and saying this, the call was transferred to a fake Mumbai police officer. The woman was told that her Aadhar card has been linked to money laundering.
Read Also: PM Modi warns India against the ‘Digital arrest scam’
The accused introduced himself as an IPS officer
Before the woman could understand anything, she was asked to download the Sky app. The woman was also threatened not to tell anyone about this. Meanwhile, the caller introduced himself as IPS Anand Rana and Finance Department officer George Mathew. After this, he gave the woman bank account numbers and asked her to transfer all the money to them. The woman was told that if no irregularities were found, the money would be transferred back. The woman was so intimidated that she was asked to keep the WhatsApp video call on for 24 hours. Not only this, the video call was kept on for a month on the home computer. When the call got disconnected, they would immediately ask the woman to start the video call again and asked for location information.
Woman’s trust won by returning 15 lakhs
Meanwhile, she was told “go to the bank and transfer the money and if anyone asks anything, tell them that you want to buy a property. The woman transferred the money as per the instructions of the accused. Then the accused returned 15 lakhs from it and won the trust of the woman. Then what, after winning the trust, the woman was asked to transfer money from her husband’s joint account as well. The woman, believing the accused, transferred about 3.8 crores from six bank accounts without thinking anything.
Mumbai Crime Branch has started investigation
Being trusted, the woman transferred the money but the accused did not return the money this time. When the accused did not return the money, the woman got suspicious. Meanwhile, the accused started demanding more money. Then fed up, the woman called her daughter and told her everything. The daughter immediately asked her to take help from the police. On the daughter’s request, the woman called 1930 and informed the police about the entire incident. The police have registered a case and Mumbai Crime Branch has started investigation.
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