CBI charges Siliguri man in Rs 23 crore digital arrest scam

The CBI has filed a chargesheet against a Siliguri man for allegedly duping a retired Delhi banker of Rs 23 crore in a digital arrest scam involving impersonation and intimidation. The accused used bank accounts to route and siphon off the funds

New Delhi: The CBI has filed a chargesheet against a man for allegedly duping a retired banker from Delhi’s upscale Gulmohar Park of Rs 23 crore in a digital arrest scam, officials said on Friday.

After taking over the investigation on March 15 on the orders of the Supreme Court, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) moved quickly and filed a chargesheet against Siliguri-based Sagnik Roy and his company, Securing World Social and Economic Development Council, which had allegedly received the retired banker’s stolen funds, officials said.

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Roy was arrested by Delhi Police, which was earlier probing the case.

“During the course of the investigation, it was revealed that the accused and his company’s current bank account were used to receive the fraud amount. These funds were linked to a “digital arrest” scam targeting a senior citizen in Delhi,” a CBI spokesperson said in a statement.

The senior citizen had been defrauded of close to Rs 23 crore through intimidation, fake notices and impersonation of law enforcement agencies and judicial authorities over video calls, the statement said.

The CBI also found that the same bank account was used in at least two other cyber fraud cases registered at separate locations in India.

“This account was used to receive proceeds of crime, which were subsequently siphoned off through a network of mule accounts,” the agency said.

For more than a month, the 78-year-old victim was kept confined to his house under digital arrest last year and was allowed out only to make visits to his banks to arrange money and transfer it to the fraudsters who posed as CBI and Enforcement Directorate officers, it said.

By the time his ordeal ended, the victim had lost Rs 23 crore.

On August 1, 2025, the man received a call from a person claiming to be from a mobile connection company. The caller told him that his Aadhaar card had been used in Mumbai to issue a connection allegedly linked to terror funding cases.

The call was then diverted to people posing as Mumbai Police officers, who insisted on speaking over WhatsApp.

“The moment I was connected with (people posing as) police, they started pressuring me by saying that my Aadhaar had been used for terror funding, terror activities and many other serious offences,” the victim had told PTI after the incident last year.

He said he was warned against revealing the matter to anyone, even his family members, and that if he did, they would be counted as co-accused and put behind bars.

The victim said the scammers sent him forged Reserve Bank of India certificates after each transfer. He said he was told the money would be returned and that a nodal officer from the RBI would contact him.