A 61-year-old woman from Dombivli fell prey to a digital arrest, losing Rs 8 lakh to fraudsters over the course of six transactions.

The fraudsters, armed with official-looking documents bearing the emblems of the Government of India and the Reserve Bank of India, manipulated her into believing she was under investigation. For three days, from September 26 to September 28, they kept her in constant fear of arrest, forcing her to empty her bank accounts and transfer the funds through RTGS to various accounts.

The victim’s son Abhishek Dubey. Pics/By Special Arrangement

The fraudsters questioned Nirmala in detail about her family’s savings — including bank accounts, fixed deposits, gold, and jewellery — and instructed her to transfer all the money, assuring that it would be returned after “verification.”

Speaking to mid-day, the victim, Nirmala Dubey, said, “I thought I was doing my duty to clear my name from the cases of money-laundering and other charges. I know about ATM or debit card scams and can handle them smartly, but this was something entirely new. They sounded so genuine and had all official documents, so I didn’t doubt them.”

Nirmala Dubey, victim 

Throughout the three days, she was instructed by the fraudsters to send a text every two hours saying, “I am safe, I am home,” to which they would reply, “Recorded to department.”

On the fourth day, after Nirmala uploaded her son’s photographs as her WhatsApp status, the calls abruptly stopped — revealing the scam. “I was in Kazakhstan on a trip. On September 29, the day I was supposed to return, I sent my mother some pictures from my trip. Later, I noticed she had uploaded a few of them as her WhatsApp status. When I returned home, I learnt about everything that had happened,” said Abhishek, Nirmala’s son.

Echoing her son’s account, Nirmala said, “The fraudsters had initially asked about my husband and son — their work timings and job profiles. I would mostly get their calls after my husband left for work in the morning. They knew Abhishek wasn’t home. But when I uploaded his photos, they must have assumed he was back. If that hadn’t happened, they would have definitely made me break my fixed deposit — that was the only money left.”

When asked why she hadn’t informed her husband or son, Nirmala said, “They told me that if anyone else came to know about the case, they too would come under the radar for being involved with me. My son was abroad, and my husband is a heart patient — I didn’t want to stress him out.”

After the calls stopped, Nirmala reached out to her uncle, a retired Reserve Bank of India official, and narrated the entire incident to him. “All the documents had the RBI’s stamp, logo — everything looked genuine. But when I showed them to my uncle, he said it was all fake and told me to rush to the police station — and that’s exactly what I did,” she said.

Realising that she had been duped, the woman filed a complaint with the Vishnu Nagar police station in Dombivli. DCP (Zone III) Atul Zende, Dombivli division, said, “I have instructed the team to expedite the investigation, and until now, we have managed to recover Rs 76,000 by freezing bank accounts through which the transactions happened. We are trying our best to recover more money and further find details of bank accounts to which money was transferred.” 

Police said they have traced the transactions, out of which some were made in Mumbai, but many were traced to Ranchi, Tamil Nadu and northeastern states.

What is digital arrest?

Digital arrest is a cyber fraud method in which scammers impersonate police officers and place victims under a fake arrest on fabricated charges of money laundering, human trafficking, or terrorism. 

Rs 76K
Money so far recovered by police 

Source