CBI arrests five more in digital arrest scams involving over Rs 42 crore

The CBI arrested five more accused in three digital arrest scam cases involving over Rs 42 crore, taking total arrests to eight. The action was part of Operation Chakra-VI, with searches across 20 states exposing networks involved in layering and transferring fraud proceeds

New Delhi: The CBI has arrested five more individuals in connection with three digital arrest scam cases in which victims were allegedly defrauded of more than Rs 42 crore, bringing the total number of arrests in these cases to eight, the agency said on Sunday.

The arrests are part of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI’s) ongoing Operation Chakra-VI, a nationwide crackdown on organised cybercrime networks involved in digital arrest frauds. The latest arrests followed the agency’s searches at 89 locations across 20 states in the three cases.

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The CBI said the five recently arrested accused were allegedly involved in receiving, layering and dispersing the fraud’s proceeds. Sanket Bastwar and Pankaj Damade, both from Itarsi in Madhya Pradesh, allegedly obtained a bank account, received the proceeds of the digital arrest fraud into it and participated in dispersing the money to obscure its trail, the agency spokesperson Beena Yadav said.

Three other accused — Arif alias King Bhai, Harish Purushottam Yadav alias Harry of New Delhi and Shashank Singh alias Ravi of Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh — allegedly arranged the bank account used to receive money from a victim and subsequently layered the funds through multiple accounts.

The CBI said the three also installed a malicious APK file on the account holder’s mobile phone. The agency alleged that the software enabled them to intercept bank SMS alerts and covertly operate the account. “The investigation is now revealing the elaborate organised network these persons were part of and how the network carried out the entire money movement,” the agency said.

The three cases involve victims in BITS Pilani, Gujarat and Karnataka, who were allegedly kept under “digital arrest” for prolonged periods by fraudsters posing as police officers. In the BITS Pilani case, the victim was allegedly kept under digital arrest for three months and defrauded of Rs 7.67 crore. In Gujarat, another victim allegedly endured a similar ordeal for three months and lost Rs 19.24 crore.

The Karnataka case involved a victim who was allegedly digitally arrested for a month and defrauded of Rs 15.45 crore. The CBI had earlier arrested three people during the searches.

Akash of Haryana allegedly received Rs 1.95 crore into an account he had opened and transferred the money to other accounts the same day. Raja Karmakar of Kolkata allegedly received Rs 1.5 crore of the fraud proceeds into his firm’s account, while Jyoti Rani allegedly withdrew part of the money credited to her account in cash and transferred the remaining amount to other accounts.