HYDERABAD: A city-based doctor couple became victims of digital arrest and were looted of Rs 3 crore. While the couple works for reputed corporate hospitals, the cyber criminals first trapped the wife, forcing her to confine herself in a room in the hospital where she was working for at least two days. The woman went through a horrifying ordeal for ten days, running between the hospital, home, and the bank to transfer funds to the fraudsters.
Cybercrime police said that the woman, 54, from Mehdipatnam, first received a call around two weeks ago from the fraudsters claiming to be calling from the Telecom Dept. They informed her that her mobile number was found to be linked to a money laundering case and that the number would be blocked in two hours. They said that she colluded with one fraudster, Suresh Kute of Delhi, and indulged in illegal activities in Delhi.
When she claimed that she was innocent, her call was switched to a Skype video call with Skype ID ‘DelhiPolice208.gov.in’. In the video call, another fraudster identifying himself as Shashank Jaiswal, an IPS with the Delhi police, showed her some orders bearing the signatures of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud. Seeing the documents, she got scared, and the fraudsters took advantage, demanding that she transfer money from all her accounts to govt bank accounts of RBI.
They also threatened that failure to comply with their instructions or revealing the matter to anybody would harm her and her entire family, as it was a matter of national secret. “They collected complete details of her husband and son, their job, income, savings, and their bank accounts. They also collected their bank balances, fixed deposits, or other assets and forced her to go to the bank to break the fixed deposits. Later, they made her transfer the funds into the bank accounts given by them,” said a Cybercrime official.
After knowing about her trauma, her husband, also a doctor, checked Google about Shashank Jaiswal and, after seeing his name on the Delhi police website, believed the issue to be true and assisted her in transferring amounts to the fraudsters.
On the whole, they transferred Rs 3 crore to the fraudsters over a ten-day period and waited for a refund after verification, as claimed by the fraudsters.
Even after waiting for over a week, when they did not receive the refund and their attempts to contact the fraudsters failed, they realised that they were duped and lodged a complaint with the Hyderabad Cybercrime wing. A case was registered and is under investigation, said an official, adding that people should be extremely cautious of such frauds and block any such calls or messages.
