Mumbai: A 64-year-old retired bank operations manager from Juhu was allegedly duped of Rs 3.8 crore after scammers posing as Mumbai and Lucknow Anti-Terrorist Squad officers kept him under “digital arrest” for 10 days over purported terrorist funding. West Cyber police registered an FIR on Aug 21 after the victim became suspicious when the scammers demanded more money despite receiving Rs 3.8 crore, which comprised his retirement funds.To siphon money and scare the Juhu resident, a person posing as inspector general Vikram Singh, called him and alleged that Rs 7 crore had been credited to the bank account in Jammu & Kashmir and the fund was used in terrorist activities in India. “The scammers claimed a money-laundering case had also been registered against the senior citizen and that his name had emerged after the arrest of alleged terrorist Asif Fauji,” said a cyber police officer of the West Cyber police station.Police have frozen about Rs 2 crore routed through 150 bank accounts across several states, some of them mule accounts. The money was initially transferred to four accounts before being diverted, and the recovery process is continuing. The fraud began at 12.50 pm on Aug 7 when a caller identifying himself as sub-inspector Aakash Sharma from ATS headquarters in Colaba claimed an illegal SIM had been purchased in the victim’s name on July 31 and linked to his Aadhaar card.The victim remained under digital arrest from Aug 7 to Aug 17. He contacted a bank manager friend, who told him he had been defrauded. In the complaint, the retired bank manager said: “I was informed first from a person claiming to be from Colaba ATS and told that a SIM has been issued in my name. The person asked to contact a WhatsApp number, where another person, identifying himself as inspector Prem Kumar Gautam from Lucknow ATS, claimed my documents had been used to open a bank account in Jammu & Kashmir.”They sent him a purported RBI letter claiming the Supreme Court had issued an arrest warrant against him. He was instructed not to communicate with his family and to remain on video calls continuously to confirm his location. “The scammers also threatened to arrest his family and promised to return the transferred money after the inquiry and issue a “Non-Involvement Certificate”. He got suspicious when the scammer kept demanding more money when he asked to return his money before he called his banking friend and learnt he was defrauded,” said the cyber police.
