A 71-year-old judge who retired from a consumer court in Amravati district of Maharashtra was reportedly duped of Rs 31 lakh by cyber fraudsters in a digital arrest scam, a police official said on Friday, reported the PTI.
According to cyber police officials in Amravati, around 700 km from Mumbai, they received a complaint from the former judge on Wednesday and have filed an FIR. The officials were investigating the matter further.
The police said that the complaint told cops that the victim received a call from an unidentified person on September 25, claiming that obscene messages have been sent to 40 people through a mobile phone SIM card registered in his name. The caller also told the ex-judge that his name has cropped up in a money laundering case and that his bank account has been used in a fraud.
The fraudster made a video call to the victim and said that an inquiry was underway against him as per “high court orders”, said the officials, citing the complaint, according to the PTI.
The fraudster further told the victim that a fraud amounting to around Rs 30 lakh has been committed through his bank account.
The scamster told the elderly man not to disclose about the ongoing inquiry against him to anyone or approach the police otherwise he will placed under arrest, said the officials.
The caller coerced the victim to deposit Rs 31 lakh while being under `digital arrest` in two separate bank accounts and promised to return the amount if nothing incriminating was found against him during their investigation, they said.
After two weeks, when the senior citizen realised he had fallen a victim to a digital arrest scam, he decided to reach out to the police and filed an online police complaint.
On his complaint an FIR was registered and the Amravati cyber police were carrying out an investigation, the officials added.
Digital arrest is a scam designed to extort money from victims using fear, deceit, and intimidation. In such scams, fraudsters typically pose as law enforcement officials, using threats of arrest against victims, the news agency reported.
(with PTI inputs)