New Delhi: A 72-year-old retired engineer from Rohini lost Rs 10 crore after being held in an eight-hour "digital arrest".
A police officer investigating the case said that the man received a call from cybercriminals posing as parcel company employees on Sept 29. They told him that a parcel containing prohibited drugs was being sent to Taiwan by him and that officials from the Mumbai crime branch wanted to speak to him. One of the fraudsters then posed as a crime branch officer and asked the elderly man to download an application and join a video call.
They intimidated the elderly man and, in the process, gathered information about his family. Subsequently, they threatened to implicate his children and coerced him into depositing Rs 10.3 crore into various bank accounts.
Later, the scammers asked the retired engineer to also collect money from his son and daughter. At this point, the elderly man became suspicious and turned off his laptop. After being held under digital arrest for approximately eight hours, the victim came out of the room and informed his family about the incident. He then filed a complaint with police on Oct 1.
This was not the first time that a senior citizen fell prey to the digital arrest scam. In July, Krishna Dasgupta, a 72-year-old resident of south Delhi's CR Park, lost Rs 83 lakh.