In a “digital arrest” scam, a Bengaluru woman fell victim to a prolonged crime, allegedly selling two plots of land, an apartment and even taking a bank loan to pay more than Rs 2 crore to cybercriminals over several months, police informed on Tuesday.
How Did This Happen?
The victim is a resident of New Thippasandra and lives with her 10-year-old son, said the police and registered an FIR on November 27 at the Whitefield CEN police station after she realised she had been duped.
The woman stated that the ordeal began on June 19, when she received a phone call from a person claiming to be from Blue Dart courier services in her complaint.
During this call, she was allegedly informed that drugs and suspicious baggage linked to her Aadhaar number had been seized and that the Mumbai police would arrest her.
It appears that the cybercriminals allegedly posed as Mumbai police officers and threatened her with serious legal consequences.
Moving further, they asked her to install certain mobile applications and ordered her to remain indoors, warning her not to share any information with anyone until the so-called investigation was completed, said the police.
They didn’t stop there, while collecting primary details, the accused found out that she had a 10-year-old son and used that as a tool to instill fear, telling her that even her child could be arrested and jailed.
The woman complied with their instructions between June 19 and November 27 and transferred money multiple times under sustained pressure.
For doing so, she sold an apartment in Vignan Nagar at a distress price and sold two plots in Malur at low rates and also took a bank loan to meet the demands as mentioned in the FIR.
Once they had extracted the money from her, the cybercriminals allegedly asked her to visit a police station to obtain a ‘no-objection certificate’.
To get this certificate, she walked into the Whitefield police station and realised that she had been conned.
Sharp Rise in Cybercrime Cases Across Karnataka
The woman transferred Rs 2,05,16,652 in total to the fraudsters through 22 transactions, with the highest single transfer amounting to Rs 70 lakh.
Following the complaint, the Whitefield CEN police have registered a case under Sections 66(c) and 66(d) of the Information Technology Act and Sections 319(2) and 318(4) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), and presently the investigation is underway.
It appears that there is a sharp rise in cybercrime cases across Karnataka nowadays.
The state has recorded losses of Rs 5,473.97 crore in 57,733 cybercrime cases over the period of past three years while recovering only about 11.5 per cent of the amount.
During this period, Karnataka lost Rs 6.05 crore averaging a day to cybercrime, but recovered only around Rs 60 lakh daily.
Earlier in 2023, victims had a one-in-five chance of recovering some of their money but it has worsened as the figure dropped to just one in 16 by 2025 as per the data.
It appears that “the nature of cybercrimes has evolved, while cryptocurrency-related fraud has declined, job scams and matrimonial fraud continue. Financial losses are now much higher, and the duration of these crimes has increased, with criminals taking hours or even days to manipulate victims through digital scams and stock trading frauds,” noted by a police officer.
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