Former teacher put on on digital arrest for a month, loses Rs 56 lakh
Ghaziabad: The nightmare began with a simple text message. And evolved into an entire month of fear, isolation, and eventual loss of her life's savings.
A retired schoolteacher from Kaushambi became the latest victim of '
digital arrest
', with
fraudsters
keeping watch on her from the morning till the time her husband returned home from office for about a month, eventually siphoning away Rs 56 lakh from her accounts.
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The victim, police said, lives with her husband — a private firm employee — while their son is settled in the UK.
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According to cops, her ordeal began with an automated call supposedly from her telecom regulator, threatening to disconnect her number within two hours because it had been used for hawala transactions.
When she sought clarification, the victim was connected to a person claiming to be a regulatory officer, who asked her to file an FIR at the police headquarters in Delhi. The scamster then conveniently offered her an alternative to file the FIR online. She was connected to another fraudster who collected her personal information under the guise of filing a police report.
The cons scripted an elaborate tale, claiming that the manager of a private bank in Delhi's Connaught Place, Ashok Gupta, had misused her number to send inappropriate messages and opened multiple accounts for illegal transactions. "They didn't stop at that. The gang escalated psychological pressure by threatening to have her son deported from the UK. She didn't tell her husband either," a police official said.
What followed was a month of virtual captivity. Every day — from 9.30am until her husband's return from office around 6pm — a man identifying himself as "inspector Rakesh" would keep her on video calls, monitoring her every move.
The situation reached its climax on April 2, when the fraudsters asked her to go to a Punjab National Bank branch in Sansad Marg, Delhi, and coerced into making multiple transfers totalling Rs 56 lakh. She The scam came to light when the retired teacher, still under pressure to provide more money, discussed selling her jewellery with a friend who recognised the fraud pattern.
ACP (crime) Ambuj Singh Yadav said a complaint had been filed at Cyber police station on May 1.
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