The CBI on Saturday arrested three accused, including a bank official, after searches at five locations across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in a "digital arrest" case in which a senior citizen was cheated of ₹1.6 crore.
The accused were identified as Dubbaka Mahesh, an assistant manager with IndusInd Bank, Rajesh Kanna and Vayala Srinivas.
Last week, the agency filed a chargesheet in another such case against a Siliguri-based trust and its manager, Sagnik Roy, for allegedly duping ₹23 crore from a 78-year-old retired Delhi banker in one of the biggest “digital arrest” cases in the country.
In October 2025, the Supreme Court had taken suo motu cognisance of the rising trend of digital arrests and directed the CBI to explore options for taking over cases involving high amounts defrauded from victims.
“The victim, a senior citizen, was allegedly coerced into transferring an amount exceeding ₹1.6 crore under the threat of digital arrest,” the agency said on Saturday.
A probe revealed the defrauded funds were routed to a bank account opened fraudulently in the name of a company to facilitate receipt of proceeds of cyber fraud.
“In continuation of the investigation, an assistant manager of IndusInd Bank has now been arrested for his alleged role in facilitating the fraudulent opening of the bank account. The other two accused were actively involved in arranging mule bank accounts and facilitating the layering and transfer of proceeds of crime from the victim through multiple accounts,” the agency said.
The south Delhi senior citizen, Naresh Malhotra, who was cheated of ₹23 crore, was kept confined to his house for more than a month under "digital arrest" last year and was let out only to make runs to his banks to shore up money and give it to the fraudsters posing as CBI and ED officers.
In August, Malhotra received a call from a person claiming to be from a mobile connection company. The caller told him that his Aadhaar card had been used to obtain a mobile number allegedly linked to terror funding cases. The call was then diverted to people posing as law enforcement officers, who insisted on speaking over WhatsApp and over six weeks, they coerced him into paying ₹22.92 crore.
