Techie is placed under ‘digital arrest’ and escapes with help from the police

Hyderabad:

A 44-year-old IT employee, who was put under “digital arrest” by cyber criminals for nearly 30 hours in a fake money laundering case in Hyderabad, managed to escape from the criminals without losing any amount of money with the help of police.

The ordeal started for the techie from the early hours of October 26 and continued till October 27, with the fraudsters posing as Mumbai police officials and making voice and video calls to him through an instant messaging app with instructions not to disconnect, the police said. on Monday.

They threatened him with arrest in the money laundering case and demanded Rs 40 lakh for withdrawing it.

It was only after the cybercriminals’ call was dropped on the morning of October 27 that the techie informed the Hyderabad cybercrime police station, who told him it was a fraud.

The techie told police that on the night of October 25, he received text messages stating that his mobile phone number and Aadhar number were related to a money laundering case filed in Mumbai, but he ignored the messages.

However, the fraudsters posing as Mumbai police officials made voice and video calls to him at 3 am on October 26 and threatened him to be arrested in the money laundering case to the tune of several crores.

They instructed him to keep calling them continuously as part of the verification and not to tell anyone about it, including his family, after which he entered a room in his house. They also sent him fake documents including FIR, warrant against him and that a petition had been filed against him in court, which scared him.

The fraudsters then told him that they would ‘resolve’ the matter by having his name ‘cleared’ and asked him to pay an amount to do so.

They then asked about the amount in his bank accounts, during which he revealed that he has a total amount of Rs 25 lakhs in the FDs and savings accounts.

After getting information about the amount in his bank accounts, the fraudsters told him to leave his house and stay in a hotel/lodge by threatening him that the police were looking for him and would pick him up from his house.

After this, the techie stepped out of his house in Miyapur area and rode his two-wheeler a distance of 15 km to Ameerpet area on October 26 and checked into a room in a lodge. Even while driving his vehicle, the fraudsters did not allow him to disconnect the phone call with them and kept a constant eye on him, the victim told police.

They led him to believe that the “verification process” would continue until Monday (October 28), after which he could make an RTGS payment to be “released”.

When the call with the fraudsters dropped around 4am on October 27, the victim called the cybercrime police for help.

After being informed about the case, Constable M. Ganesh, who received the call, told him that it was a fraud and there was no need to be afraid. The officer then took his neighbor’s number and asked him to reach the lodge.

The officer said he continued to talk to the tech from his personal phone for an hour so he wouldn’t take extreme steps, and told him to block the fraudsters’ numbers as they continued to call him after their call dropped. This ensured that he did not fall prey to the fraudsters, the officer said, adding that the techie’s neighbor reached the lodge and picked him up.

However, the tech did not file a complaint because he did not lose any money, the officer said.

India’s cybersecurity agency CERT-In on Sunday shared a list of more than a dozen ways online scams are being perpetrated by fraudsters in the country, including ‘digital capture’ to dupe people into stealing their money and private data.

The Computer Emergency Response Team of India (CERT-In) said “digital arrest” is an online scam. According to the advisory, in a “digital arrest” case, victims will receive a phone call, email or message claiming they are under investigation for illegal activity, such as identity theft or money laundering.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)