A 59-year-old Japanese national working in Bengaluru was reportedly defrauded of ₹35.49 lakh by cyber criminals who threatened him with a fabricated "digital arrest."
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According to reports, Hiroshi Sasaki, employed by a private company in Bellandur, has been living in Bengaluru on an employment visa for the past six years. In his complaint to Bengaluru police, Sasaki explained that he received a call on the morning of December 12 from an unknown person who claimed to be an official from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). He then informed Sasaki that his phone number was about to be disconnected.
The call was then subsequently transferred to individuals posing as officers from the Mumbai police’s cybercrime unit. During a WhatsApp call, these fraudsters accused Sasaki of being involved in a money-laundering investigation and threatened him with arrest. They sent him some counterfeit documents, which appeared to be from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Mumbai police, and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Fearing legal consequences, Sasaki complied with their demands and transferred a total of ₹35.49 lakh in multiple payments between December 12 and 14, using RTGS and UPI. The scammers assured him that the money would be refunded once the "investigation" was completed.
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{{/usCountry}}However, when Sasaki did not receive any refund, he approached the police. The Southeast Cyber, Economic, and Narcotics (CEN) crime police registered a case under relevant sections of the Information Technology Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). Early investigations showed that the primary accounts used by the fraudsters had already been drained of funds. Police officials stated that efforts are underway to trace the stolen money and identify the perpetrators.
In a similar digital arrested scam, a techie from Bengaluru lost whopping ₹11.9 crore to fraudsters who claimed to be officials from Mumbai.