Mumbai Cyber Police have arrested six people, including an IIT Delhi graduate and a private bank manager, for allegedly defrauding a 68-year-old retired businessman of ₹1.12 crore in a digital arrest scam, an official said on September 17.
The victim, a resident of Dahisar, was allegedly kept under digital arrest at his home for nearly two weeks between July and August. The accused initially contacted him while posing as officials from the Department of Telecommunications and claimed that his Aadhaar details had been misused in a money laundering case registered in Delhi, according to the official.
The alleged fraudsters then used WhatsApp video calls to impersonate police officers. One of them, identified as ‘Vijay Khanna’, reportedly appeared in a police uniform and displayed fabricated documents carrying official logos and references to the Supreme Court. The victim was allegedly threatened with the arrest of family members and ordered to report his location every two hours.
Under pressure, the retired businessman liquidated his fixed deposits and transferred ₹1.12 crore to several bank accounts allegedly controlled by the gang. The fraud came to light after his daughter discovered what had happened and approached the cyber police.
The six accused have been identified as Tarik Momin, Rakesh Jain, Chintan Desai, Shakar Tyagi, G Gohel and Ajay Sharma. The official said Gohel, a web developer with a Bachelor of Engineering degree from IIT Delhi, had previously been booked in a cheating case in 2021. Tyagi is employed as an operations manager with a private bank, the official said.
Investigators from the North Cyber Police traced the money trail to a bank account belonging to a gold trading firm. According to the police, Momin handled mule bank accounts, while Jain, the firm’s director, had a registered SIM card that was routed through Tyagi and Gohel to manage one-time passwords.
The police alleged that Chintan Desai later travelled with the linked device to Bijnor in Uttar Pradesh, where the stolen funds were withdrawn and siphoned off. The movement of the device and the routing of OTPs formed part of the financial trail being examined by investigators.
The case shows how the alleged operation combined impersonation over video calls with access to bank accounts, mobile connections and one-time passwords. In this instance, the victim’s fixed deposits were converted into immediately transferable funds after the callers created a false legal emergency.
The investigation into the syndicate’s financial transactions and other operations is being led by senior inspector Pramod Kamble and inspector Sunil Lokhande under the supervision of Deputy Commissioner of Police Bajrang Bansode. Further action will follow as the police examine the wider money trail and the accused persons’ alleged operations.
