A 50-year-old woman was cheated of Rs 11 lakh and placed under “digital arrest” for a day, in the first such case from Noida linked to this new cyber fraud trend. The culprits posed as police personnel, who mentioned the names of an IPS officer in the CBI and the founder of a grounded airline, associating the victim in a fictitious money-laundering case.
According to officials, the Uttar Pradesh police has launched an investigation in the case registered at the cyber crime police station in Noida. A similar case was recently reported in Haryana’s Faridabad where cyber criminals, posing as cops, got a woman “digitally arrested” for more than a week after convincing her that her personal IDs were used for illegal activities. The gang then asked her to stay online via Skype and not share this information with anyone even as they kept a watch on her throughout the period.
The victim from Noida reported the matter to the UP police cyber crime officials and alleged a fraud of Rs 11.11 lakh with her, besides being “digitally arrested” from morning to night. In her complaint, she stated that she was contacted over an IVR (interactive voice response) call on November 13 and told that a mobile phone SIM card was purchased using her Aadhaar card in Mumbai and used for illegal advertising and harassment of women.
“Then my call was transferred to a person (who identified himself as a Mumbai Police officer) who did the initial interrogation over the call and then on Skype VC. Then he told me that I have another allegation of money laundering related to (the founder of an airline) for which an FIR has been registered against me and an arrest warrant issued by the Supreme Court for which he sent documents on Skype,” the FIR said.
“After the interrogation, he said I am innocent and not guilty, so he is transferring the interrogation (to an IPS officer posted with the CBI, Mumbai) for further investigation of this case. Then he gave the Skype ID and asked me to request the CBI officer to do the priority investigation on VC to remove my arrest warrant,” she said in her complaint.
The FIR further said the CBI officer told the woman that during the investigation of the airline founder, police found 246 debit cards from his house and one of those had her name on it and was used to open a bank account with her Aadhaar card.
“He then said my account was used for a fund transfer of Rs 2 crore for which I have been paid Rs 20 lakh. However, he said I do not look to be involved in this case, so to complete the investigation, I need to transfer funds from all my accounts to my ICICI account and subsequently, transfer the funds from the ICICI account to the PFC account as per the directives of the Supreme Court…,” she said in the FIR.
The woman said she was told not to disclose this information as it was related to “national security and will make me liable for further action”. “Also, to prove not guilty of the crime, he asked me to keep sufficient balance in my accounts for which he also advised to apply for a personal instant loan of Rs 20 lakh from ICICI and gave the details of how to apply for the same, which I denied but he forced me to arrange Rs 3 lakh more through the same and, after much pressure, I had applied for the same, which is also transferred to the PFC account,” she said in her complaint.
She further alleged that the culprits took a picture of her signature on Skype on the pretext of validating her Aadhaar card for investigation.
Inspector Reeta Yadav, incharge of the cyber crime police station in Noida Sector 36, said a case has been registered under relevant provisions of the Information Technology Act and Indian Penal Code (IPC). “An investigation is underway,” she told PTI.
Yadav urged people to be cautious of emerging online crimes and reach out to police at the earliest either on the central helpline number 1930 or emergency number 112 or report such activities to the cyber desk of local police stations.
“People should also know that police never question any person digitally. If someone threatens you like this, ask them to send you a proper notice, ask for their details and tell them that you are coming to the police station to meet them,” the officer added.
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