The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has conducted coordinated searches at 89 locations across 20 states and arrested three people in a nationwide crackdown on cybercrime syndicates allegedly involved in ‘digital arrest’ cases, officers said on Friday.
During the search operations, the CBI arrested three persons, whose examination revealed their specific and material role in receiving, layering and dispersing the fraud proceeds to project them as untainted funds. The victim belongs to a reputed private deemed university in Pilani. He allegedly opened the account and then swiftly transferred the funds to other accounts on the same day, establishing his direct role and knowledge in laundering the proceeds of crime. A woman identified as Jyoti was also arrested after her bank account was allegedly found to have received part of a victim’s defrauded sum. She allegedly withdrew a portion of the money in cash and transferred the rest to other accounts, thereby actively participating in dispersing the funds to obscure their trail. Taking serious note of the alarming scale of these crimes, the Supreme Court of India has also directed the CBI to take concerted action against the perpetrators and the wider networks facilitating offences like ‘digital arrest’.
The Gujarat case involves the alleged duping of a victim of ₹ 19.24 crore after the person was kept under illegal digital arrest for three months by fraudsters posing as police officers investigating a crime. The second case, from Pilani in Rajasthan, pertains to the alleged duping of a victim of ₹ 7.67 crore during a three-month illegal confinement under ‘digital arrest’ by persons posing as police officers. One of the arrested persons was Akash, a resident of Haryana, who was allegedly found to have received ₹ 1.95 crore of the defrauded amount in his account. The second person arrested was identified as Raja, a resident of Kolkata, West Bengal, who allegedly received ₹ 1.5 crore of the fraud proceeds in his firm’s account.
The three cases, including one pertaining to Gujarat, are among several digital arrest fraud cases in which the CBI took over investigations from police units in multiple states, officials said. The searches and arrests were carried out as part of the CBI’s probes into three cybercrime cases, officers said on Friday.
The third case pertains to Karnataka, where a victim was allegedly kept under digital arrest for a month and defrauded of ₹ 15.45 crore, officials said.
