An 88-year-old resident of Rashbehari Avenue was “digitally arrested” for a day and coerced into paying ₹33 lakh by fraudsters who pretended to be CBI officers, police said.
The elderly man was told that unless he paid up, he would be jailed for multiple fraud cases awaiting resolution.
Ashok Kumar Agarwal filed a complaint with Gariahat police station in June. A joint team of officers from the station and the cyber cell of Kolkata Police’s southeast division recently recovered ₹8 lakh of the stolen amount.
“Three callers posed as CBI officers and told Agarwal that he had several cases against him. To withdraw these cases, he was asked to pay ₹33 lakh,” a senior officer of the Gariahat police station said.
“The man was kept under digital arrest for a day and told to opt for an out-of-court settlement to avoid arrest. Most of the family members were not around when the calls were made from unknown numbers,” said the officer.
The octogenarian finally agreed to pay the amount and chose to transfer the sum through real-time gross settlement (RTGS).
In recent times, digital coercion involving embarrassment and harassment has become one of the most powerful means of deceiving people.
Police officers said the victims are being led to believe that their name or the name of a close kin has been linked to a criminal case and that they will be arrested soon.
“Fraudsters engage the victim over a video call where a man in a police uniform threatens the victim with the charges against him or her. That makes the whole act convincing,” an officer said.
On September 8, a 74-year-old retired central government officer from Rajarhat was digitally “arrested” and held captive for nearly three weeks by cyber fraudsters who convinced him that he was wanted in a human trafficking case, before duping him out of ₹1.04 crore.
Sunith Kumar Ray, a resident of a gated community in East Beraberi on SRCM Road under Narayanpur police station, received a call from someone claiming to be a Bengaluru Police officer.
The caller alleged that a mobile number registered in Ray’s name was being used to send illegal advertisements and harassing messages.
In July, an elderly Calcuttan was kept under “digital arrest” for more than a week and forced to transfer ₹1.09 crore from his retirement funds, the police said.
Bidhannagar police arrested two teenagers and a youth from Odisha for their alleged involvement in the fraud.
Following a complaint from the 88-year-old resident of Rashbehari, the police tracked the routes taken by the money to reach the beneficiaries.
“We were able to recover ₹8 lakh after freezing several of these pathways,” said an officer.