Scammer puts 29-year old man on ‘Digital arrest’ for six days, loots Rs 14 lakh from him
by Sunita · KalingaTVBengaluru: The fraudsters are now becoming more clever with their way of cheating people of their money with new tricks. They now use some sophisticated fraud methods to extort money from innocent people.
In a fraud case, a 29-year-old western Bengaluru man was looted of Rs 14 lakh in six days. The man was reportedly held under digital arrest’ for six days by scammers posing as telecom and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials. During this period, he had transferred about Rs 14 lakh to the scammers.
The victim allegedly received a call on September 25 at around 2:05 pm from a callers who introduced himself as Rajesh Mittal, an operator for the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) with ID TRA151914. He allegedly told him that a phone number registered in his name was being used for illegal activities and money laundering. The ‘TRAI operator’ told Pareek an FIR (MH1045/0924) was registered in Maharashtra.
However, he clarified that the phone number mentioned in the FIR is not his. Then he was transferred with a call with an CBI officer from Mumbai. The supposed CBI officer refused to reveal his identity.
Then the scammers used an scare tactic and urged the victim to come to the CBI office in Mumbai for investigation on the same day, clearing knowing he can’t come. As the man was unable to reach Mumbai from Bengaluru in one day, he was told to sit through an online video conference interrogation. He was told that his statement will be recorded and he would issued a “clearance certificate”, which would help him in “future investigations”.
The CBI officer scared him with the information that his HDFC bank account has been used to transact $6 million and he would be under 24×7 surveillance. When he denied having made any such transaction they asked him to download the Signal messaging app from PlayStore to record his video statement. Generally, in digital arrest scams, conmen are known to use Skype, but in this case, they have resorted to Signal, which offers end-to-end encryption.
Once the “statement” was recorded, the CBI impersonator told him to transfer 80 per cent of the money in his bank accounts to an ‘RBI account’ for verification, which would be credited post clearance.
Between September 25 and October 2, Pareek transferred Rs 14.57 lakh. On October 3, a case was registered, and an investigation was launched.