SGPGIMS doctor conned by cyber thugs, loses ₹2.81 cr in 8-day ordeal
DCP East Shashank Singh said that the cybercrooks managed to confine the doctor to her house from August 1 to August 8, telling her that she was under ‘digital arrest’
A woman doctor of SGPGIMS, Ruchika Tondon, a resident of Krishna Nagar, was duped of ₹2.81 crore after she was conned by cyber thugs posing as CBI officers. She lodged a complaint at Cyber police station in Vibhuti Khand on August 10.
DCP East Shashank Singh said that the cybercrooks managed to confine the doctor to her house from August 1 to August 8, telling her that she was under ‘digital arrest’, and was forced to transfer money in parts from different bank accounts.
In her complaint she stated that on August 1, she received a call from an unknown number. The caller introduced himself to be a member of Telephone Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and told her that all her mobile phone numbers were going to be closed for communication services. Tondon asked for the reason and was told that there were 22 complaints pending against the SIM numbers of these mobile phone numbers and now a CBI officer would talk to her.
The doctor was asked to download Skype and talk to CBI officer Rahul Gupta.
Gupta told her that her name had come up in Naresh Goyal’s money laundering case and her bank account had been used to hoard money which was used in women and child trafficking.
The accused further told her that the court had evidence against her in the form of an audio recording of her conversation with the money launderers.
The miscreant later sent her a form in which she had to fill in all her personal information. The accused said that they had received an order to arrest her and that she was being digitally arrested for interrogation. The victim was warned not to tell anything about this to her family as this was an interrogation and she was not allowed to reveal it to anyone. She was told that she may be absolved from being sent to jail if she cooperated in the investigation.
The woman doctor was asked to give complete details of her property in court and deposit all her savings in a government account which will be verified. To deposit the money, they sent her seven different bank accounts in which a total of ₹2.81 crore was transferred from five accounts which she held.
‘Digital arrest’ does not exist: Police
In-charge of Cyber-Crime police station in Vibhuti Khand, Brijesh Kumar Yadav, who is also a cyber expert said that there is no such thing as ‘digital arrest’. He said the victims are forced to stay visible over Skype or other video conferencing platforms until the demands of the fraudsters are met. He said fraudsters use the background of a police station or other law enforcement agencies or forged documents carrying signatures of senior law enforcement officers to make people believe them.
In a press note shared by the CBI, officials said publicly available CBI logo is misused by criminals as their display picture to make calls, mainly through WhatsApp, to extort money. They said the public is advised to be cautious and not fall prey to such scams as well as any such attempt should be immediately reported to the local police
Recent similar scams
At least three cases of digital arrest were reported in Lucknow in the past 45 days.
On June 25: One Manvi Mehrotra, a resident of Indira Nagar, was defrauded of ₹13.73 lakh by cyber criminals posing as CBI officers, threatening to book her in a money laundering case. Her amount was returned as she complained about the matter to the cybercrime police station after immediately realizing that she had fallen victim to cyber fraud.
July 7: Naresh Saxena, a poet, was conned by crooks posing as CBI officers. THey confined him to his house for around six hours on June 6. The scammers, who aimed to con the elderly poet by threatening him with arrest in a money laundering case, made him recite poetry for hours. He had filed the complaint with the Gomti Nagar police station on July 7.
July 10: Ishwar Chandra Rahi, a technical officer at the geochemistry department of Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences, was duped of ₹50,000 by cyber criminals during office hours on July 10. The caller introduced himself as an employee of the cybercrime department and threatened him with legal action as they were holding a parcel in his name containing 14 grams of MDM and other psychotropic substances.
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