Retired defence PSU official loses ₹72 lakh to digital arrest | Hyderabad News

Hyderabad: A 69-year-old former deputy director general of a defence PSU was allegedly duped of ₹72.3 lakh by fraudsters posing as Mumbai crime branch police in a digital arrest scam. According to the complainant, a resident of Gachibowli, he received a WhatsApp call on Oct 15 from an individual who identified himself as Pradip. “The caller claimed some illegal activities had been carried out in my name and that an arrest warrant had been issued against me in a money-laundering case,” the victim said.The fraudsters then sent him a series of forged documents to intimidate him. “They sent me an FIR purportedly issued by the Mumbai police crime bearing my Aadhaar number, an ED arrest and freezing order, an RBI letter asking me to transfer my funds to a suspect account, and a security deposit order attributed to the Supreme Court,” the victim told police.A second caller, claiming to be from Colaba police station, made the victim display his PAN and Aadhaar cards and bank account details during video calls. Promising that the money would be refunded after “verification”, the fraudsters persuaded him to transfer funds through RTGS to five beneficiary accounts provided by them.The victim also raised a gold loan and borrowed money against a fixed deposit to make the transfers. “Between Oct 21 and Nov 5, I transferred ₹72.3 lakh. I realised I had been cheated when they failed to return the money and stopped responding to my calls. I lost my life savings and am now unable to pay the EMIs on the gold loan I took to pay the fraudsters,” the victim told the police. Based on his complaint, Cyberabad cybercrime police registered a case under relevant Sections of the BNS and the IT Act on Thursday.