Hyderabad: A 73-year-old retired Air Force employee has lost Rs 33.5 lakh in a digital arrest cyber fraud. On the victim’s complaint, a case was registered by the Malkajgiri police.The complainant, from Bollarum, told police that on June 30, he received a phone call from an unknown number. The caller, claiming to be from ‘Suchna Vibhag’, told the victim that another phone number was obtained using his Aadhaar card at Uttam Nagar in Delhi and an FIR was registered at Daryaganj police station in Delhi for misuse of the phone number.“The caller asked me to talk to a Delhi police officer regarding the FIR and provided a contact number,” the victim said.When the ex-serviceman contacted the newly provided phone number, a person claiming to be Delhi police officer Vijay Khanna answered the call. Khanna told the victim that a money laundering case was registered against him and connected him to ED official Rahul Gupta.The fraudster posing as Rahul Gupta told the victim that summons were issued by the Supreme Court against him. By threatening to arrest the victim and confiscate his assets, the accused collected details of all his investments.“To avoid arrest, on their instructions, I closed my fixed deposits and mutual funds and transferred Rs 33.5 lakh to two bank accounts provided by them on July 3 and July 8,” the victim told police.The accused also instructed the complainant not to disclose the matter to anyone, citing confidentiality of the investigation. As there was no communication from the accused after the transfer of the money, the victim told his friend about the incident on July 12.On his friend’s advice, the victim approached police on Wednesday and lodged a complaint. Based on the complaint, a case was registered under Sections 316(2) (criminal conspiracy), 318(4) (cheating), 319(2) (cheating by personation), 338 (forgery of valuable security or will, etc.), and 308(2) (extortion) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Section 66(C&D) of the IT Act.
