MUMBAI: With the arrest of two people from Pune, the Charkop Police busted a digital arrest scam where a homemaker had been duped of nearly Rs 10 lakh. Police said the accused are in their mid-twenties and one of them is a jalebi seller in Pune. Investigators have seized 13 bank passbooks and chequebooks, besides 17 debit and credit cards from the accused.
The complainant is 59 and lives at Kandivali West. On Jan 15, she received a WhatsApp call around 10 am. The caller said he was a policeman named Khanna. He told her that her bank account had been used in a scam and was going to be freezed.
Further, he warned that a case was going to be registered against her. She was told that she was being placed under digital arrest. Subsequently, another individual posing as a lawyer called her up.
Between Jan 15 and 18, the accused kept a watch on her online and instructed her to pay a sum of Rs 9.75 lakh. The complainant paid the money via RTGS. She later confided in relatives and discovered that she had been taken her for a ride.
She wrote a complaint over email to the Mumbai Police following which an FIR was registered at Charkop Police station on Jan 31.
A police team supervised by DCP Anand Bhoite and senior inspector Jyoti Bhople, and comprising cyber officer Vishal Tejale, found that the entire sum had been transferred to the bank account of Bhaggaram Devasi, a 23-year-old jalebi seller from Pune.
His mobile number linked to the bank account was switched off. Police then got his Aadhaar card details and found another phone number linked with his Aadhaar. This phone number was working and its location was Talavde in Pune. A Charkop police team rushed to Pune and took Devasi into custody.
Devasi claimed that he had opened an account on the instructions of one Kamlesh Chaudhari, 24, also a Pune resident. Devasi had been paid a Rs 30000 commission for the job. Police tracked down and arrested Chaudhari.
It turned out that he had got seven to eight bank accounts opened for receiving defrauded money. He had given out commission ranging from Rs 5000 to Rs 10000 for it. The defrauded money was further transferred by Chaudhari to the mastermind. Police have launched a manhunt for the mastermind.
Devasi and Chaudhari are currently in judicial custody.