They convinced her to choose ‘digital custody’ for seven days and transfer her money to a fake account for a supposed investigation

MUMBAI: A 49-year-old woman from Andheri ended up losing Rs 33.5 lakh to fake police and CBI officials recently. She was accused of being involved in ‘money laundering’ and the fake officer gave her a choice – she could either choose to be in police custody for three months or opt to be in digital custody for seven-days until the investigation is completed.
To give it all a real feel, the cyber fraudsters even made the woman submit an online application to the ‘police officers’ asking them to keep her in ‘digital custody’, and the application was even approved. The woman ended up losing her savings to the cyber fraud. The police said that this could be the first case in the city of a person being given the choice of ‘digital custody’. The fraud took place between Dec 2 and Dec 31 last year. A criminal offence was registered on Feb 25.
The woman has stated in her complaint that she first received a call from a person who claimed to be from Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, or Trai, department. He said her mobile number would be disconnected within two hours because it was being used to send threat and fraud messages to many people. The woman refuted the allegations.
Another person, identifying himself as Sunilkumar Gautam from the cyber-crime department, Delhi, said that an FIR was registered against her in Delhi. He told her that illegal activities were being carried out using her Aadhaar card details and that several bank accounts were opened in her name for money laundering.
One more person, claiming to be IPS officer Rajeshwar Pradhan, video-called the woman. She said in her statement that since the caller was in police uniform, she believed he was indeed a cop. Pradhan told her that since her account was used for money laundering, they would arrest and keep her in police custody for 90 days. He told her that if she did not want to stay in the 90-day police custody, she could give an application for a seven-day digital custody.
The woman told investigators that she submitted an application for digital custody and Pradhan ‘approved’ it. She was instructed to make a WhatsApp call to Pradhan every hour. Pradhan then sent her fake documents from CBI and Delhi Police.
He asked her to transfer all her money into a ‘Secret Supervision Account’, claiming it would be returned once they issued her a clearance certificate. She was told that the case was with CBI.
On Dec 31, Pradhan stopped taking her calls which made her suspect that it was a fraud.