Three Arrested In Hyderabad For Rs 37.7 Lakh ‘Digital Arrest’ Scam

Hyderabad: City cybercrime sleuths arrested three persons, two of them students, who had extorted a city-based victim of Rs 37,70,000 in the scam called ‘digital arrest’. It is suspected that the trio was involved in six cases across the country, extorting their victims of Rs3 crore.

The trio — students Mohammed Rizwan, 20, and Nikhil Kumar, 19, and account supplier Vikram Singh, all from Rajasthan —impersonated telecom department and police officials, using forged electronic documents and threatening the victim with the false threat of ‘digital arrest’.

The cybercrime police started their investigation on August 11 following a complainant from the city-based target, Arvind Babu. DCP, cybercrime (CCS), said in a release on Thursday.

During interrogation, the fraudsters said they had contacted victim over phone, and accused of being involved in illegal activities. They coerced the victim into transferring funds to their designated bank accounts, claiming that the money needed to be checked and verified to scrutinise account transactions.

They further misled the victim by assuring that the amount would be returned after verification and purported ‘clearance‘ from the RBI, police said.