Hyderabad: Cyber fraudsters, posing as officials from the Bengaluru police and the CBI, allegedly placed a 78-year-old retired general manager of a PSU under digital arrest and duped him of 1.1 crore.According to the complainant, on Sept 30, the victim received a call from an individual who introduced himself as an official of the department of telecommunications. The caller claimed that the victim’s SIM card had been fraudulently obtained using his Aadhaar details. The call was then transferred to another fraudster who posed as Bengaluru police inspector Sandeep Rao. The impersonator reportedly appeared on a video call wearing a police uniform to convince the victim of the legitimacy of the inquiry.The frausters accused the victim of being involved in a human trafficking case and money laundering. Pretending to help him clear his name, another individual posing as CBI officer Daya Nayak, along with ‘inspector Sandeep’, coerced the victim into transferring large sums of money to various bank accounts. “The fraudsters sent me fake Supreme Court orders asking me to prove my innocence by transferring money into bank accounts they provided, claiming it was a security deposit under the National Security Act,” the victim stated in the complaint.On the instructions of the fraudsters, between Oct 3 and 11, the victim transferred 1.1 crore in 12 transactions to multiple bank accounts. The victim claimed he even pledged gold ornaments to raise the money. Despite transferring the amount, the fraudsters accused the victim of delaying the investigation and demanded another 1 crore without citing any reason. “I grew suspicious and consulted my relatives, who advised me to file a police complaint,” the victim said.Based on his complaint, a case was registered under sections 66-C and 66-D of the IT Act, sections 111(2)(b) (organised crime), 308(2) (extortion), 318(4) (cheating), 319(2) (cheating by personation), 336(3) (forgery for purpose of cheating), 338 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc), and 340(2) (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) of the BNS.
