Kolkata:Madhya Pradesh Police, with local assistance, arrested a Kolkata-based woman on Saturday night for orchestrating a Rs 6 lakh fraud targeting a retired bank executive.The accused, Afroz Siraj Khan, was apprehended from her hideout in the Anandapur area. Investigators believe Khan served as a key operative in a multi-state cyber fraud syndicate operating out of Bengal. She was presented before a local court to secure a transit remand to transfer her to Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh.The case dates back to April 2025, when Chaitali Maitra, a former senior official at a state-run bank in Jabalpur, received a call from fraudsters posing as bank representatives. The callers quoted her former employee ID to establish credibility before enticing her with a free credit card offer. Upon clicking a malicious link sent under the guise of an application form, Maitra’s mobile phone was remotely compromised, resulting in the instant debit of Rs 6 lakh from her account.Following a formal complaint, Jabalpur Police initially arrested two suspects and traced the financial trail. A critical lead emerged when bank records revealed that Rs 1 lakh of the defrauded sum had been transferred directly into a Kolkata-based bank account registered in Khan’s name.Subsequent intelligence gathered during questioning established that Khan was managing the operational backend of the racket, coordinating with call callers and field agents across several states, while employing multiple local associates in Kolkata to handle compromised accounts and siphon illicit funds.Cops noted that the arrest points to a rising trend of inter-state cyber syndicates using their remote locations – and outsourced data – to target victims in other states. Armed with a judicial warrant, MP Police executed the raid and is currently working alongside Kolkata Police to identify and arrest the remaining members of the inter-state network. The accused will be taken to MP on transit remand.
