Andhra woman loses Rs 1.43 crore in digital arrest scam

A Machilipatnam woman allegedly lost Rs 1.43 crore after cyber fraudsters posing as Delhi Police officials threatened her with arrest in a fabricated money laundering case. The accused allegedly forced her to transfer money after showing her fake official documents

Machilipatnam: A woman from Andhra Pradesh’s Krishna district has claimed that she lost about Rs 1.43 crore to cyber fraudsters who posed as Delhi Police officials in a fabricated money laundering case, police said on Friday.

District Superintendent of Police (SP) Vidya Sagar Naidu told PTI that a case had been registered based on a complaint from the woman. The case was registered around two days ago under the relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), the Information Technology Act and other applicable laws.

---

“We have registered a case in this incident. It is a digital arrest scam. Despite continuous awareness campaigns, especially among elderly people, some still fall victim to such fraudsters. By the time they approach the police, the money is often siphoned off, but we register a case and investigate every complaint,” Naidu said.

The victim, V Alivelu Mangamma, a resident of Paraspet in Machilipatnam, alleged that the fraudsters first contacted her on June 10, claiming that harassment messages were being sent in her name and that a case had been registered against her at a Delhi police station.

“People posing as Delhi Police officials falsely implicated me in a money laundering case, invoked the name of the Chief Justice of India while issuing a non-bailable warrant and, through threats and deception, made me transfer more than Rs 1.43 crore,” Mangamma told reporters on Thursday.

They told Mangamma that an arrest warrant against her had been issued after accusing her of involvement in a money laundering case linked to a public sector bank account allegedly opened in her name at a Delhi branch.

The callers claimed that a person named Goyal had been arrested in a money laundering case and that the bank account in her name had surfaced during the investigation. They told her that suspicious financial transactions had taken place through the account and that she would be produced before the “Chief Justice” within 24 hours in connection with a “national secret case,” Mangamma added.

Two persons identifying themselves as “Rahul Gupta” and “Nisha Patel” claimed to be investigating officials and directed her to disclose all her assets and bank accounts, she said, adding that they allegedly told her to transfer the money in her accounts for forensic verification, assuring her that it would be returned within three days after she was cleared of suspicion.

Believing the claims, Mangamma said she cancelled fixed deposits at a bank in Machilipatnam and transferred Rs 1.05 crore through Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) to an account specified by the fraudsters after receiving what appeared to be notarised documents.

She alleged that she later transferred another nearly Rs 39 lakh through RTGS after receiving similar documents.

According to the victim, the fraudsters did not contact her throughout July before calling again on July 29, claiming that she had not transferred the full amount she had declared. They allegedly threatened that all her properties would be seized unless she transferred another Rs 95 lakh.

Mangamma alleged that “Patel” advised her to mortgage her property, pledge her gold and silver, or borrow money from relatives and friends. She was allegedly instructed to transfer Rs 20 lakh immediately, another Rs 22 lakh over the next two days and the remaining Rs 53 lakh before the end of the month.

She said she became suspicious after being asked to borrow money despite being told earlier that the money in her bank accounts was allegedly linked to money laundering. She immediately informed her son, who is in the US, and on his advice, approached the police with the help of members of a voluntary organisation.

The victim alleged that the fraudsters communicated through WhatsApp and the IMO application, where the screen displayed “ED Surveillance Room” and the name “Rahul Gupta”, though the callers never switched on their video during the conversations.

Mangamma said her husband, V Vempati Gopalakrishna, a retired Superintending Engineer in the Panchayat Raj Department, was instructed to install the IMO application. She said the fraudsters warned them not to inform anyone, claiming that associates of the alleged accused would trace and kill their son if they disclosed the matter.

Meanwhile, the SP said the district police had been conducting extensive awareness campaigns on digital arrest and other cyber frauds and had prevented several such incidents in the past.

However, victims often realise they have been cheated only after transferring the money, by which time the fraudsters usually move the funds through multiple accounts, making recovery more difficult, he said.