Police have arrested a man who allegedly provided his bank accounts to the frauds to receive and route the money.
MUMBAI: A 75-year-old retired Income Tax officer from Dahisar was allegedly duped of ₹ 51 lakh by cyber frauds who kept him under a “digital arrest” for days and threatened him with imprisonment in a fake money-laundering case.
Police said their investigation has also revealed the identities of other suspects and a special operation has been launched to apprehend them. The accused, Mohammad Safwan Abdul Hamid, was arrested after the North Region Cyber police traced him using technical information. In January, he received a video call from a man dressed in a police uniform who identified himself as Premkumar Gautam, a senior Lucknow Police officer. Soon after, two others, posing as police inspector Vijay Khanna and Director General of Police Rakesh Agrawal, contacted him through video calls. They also sent him forged documents and sought details of his bank accounts. He was arrested and produced before a magistrate’s court in Borivali, which remanded him in police custody.
The complainant, Dhananjay Balwant Sawant, retired as an Income Tax officer in 2010, according to police.
The caller allegedly told Sawant that a bank account had been opened using his documents and was being used for transactions involving lakhs of rupees linked to money laundering. Police said the frauds threatened to send officers to his home if he spoke to anyone about the case or failed to follow their instructions. Believing the callers to be genuine police officers, Sawant transferred ₹ 51 lakh from his bank accounts and other deposits to an account specified by them, purportedly a “secure” account where the money would remain until the investigation was over.
The frauds allegedly told Sawant that a case had been registered against him and that he faced arrest and a minimum 10-year prison sentence.
They instructed him to remain available on video calls for questioning and told him he was effectively under “house arrest” until the investigation was completed.
