A 78-year-old retired Tata company employee from Chembur East has lost ₹1.90 crore to cyber criminals who posed as anti-terror officials and kept her under so-called "digital arrest" for weeks, the Free Press Journal reported. The Eastern Region Cyber Police of the Mumbai Police have registered an FIR under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Information Technology Act.
How the scam unfolded
According to the complaint, the woman, who lives with her 80-year-old husband, received a WhatsApp message on October 6 from a woman who claimed her Aadhaar had been misused for money laundering. Soon after, a man in police uniform made a WhatsApp video call.
Over the following days, callers impersonated a series of officials — including a supposed senior officer of the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) and a person posing as a police commissioner. They told her that her name had surfaced in a terror-funding and money-laundering investigation and that she had received money from a terror suspect.
The fraudsters:
- told her police were watching her colony and that she must not leave home without permission;
- demanded hourly messages about her whereabouts;
- made her install the encrypted app Signal;
- showed her a fake "RBI letter" to make the probe look genuine; and
- collected her bank details and instructed her to sell shares and break fixed deposits.
Under threat of arrest, she transferred the money in stages via RTGS to multiple accounts. The callers promised the "case" would be settled and the money returned within 10 days — and then demanded more.
How it came to light
Her nephew, who lives in the United States, learned of the transfers and alerted a family friend in Mumbai, who called the 1930 cyber crime helpline and filed an online complaint on November 1. Police are now tracing the beneficiary accounts, which were held with branches of private and public sector banks in other states.
"No police agency arrests anyone on a video call"
There is no such thing as a "digital arrest" under Indian law. Police, the CBI, the ED, the ATS or the RBI will never question or detain anyone over a video call, ask them to stay on camera, or demand that money be moved to a "safe" or "verification" account.
If you receive such a call:
- Hang up — do not stay on the call or share screens.
- Do not transfer money or share OTPs, bank or Aadhaar details.
- Call 1930 immediately or report at cybercrime.gov.in — the faster the report, the better the chance of freezing the money.
- Tell a family member. Fraudsters rely on isolating their victims.
