A 57-year-old woman in Bengaluru lost nearly Rs 32 crore after falling victim to an elaborate “digital arrest” scam that kept her confined virtually for about a month.
An FIR filed on November 14 states that her ordeal began on September 15, 2024, when she received a call from someone pretending to be a DHL representative who claimed a parcel in her name from Andheri contained banned items like four passports, three credit cards and MDMA.
57-Year-Old Bengaluru Woman Duped of Rs 32 Crore in Elaborate Cyber Fraud
Even though she denied any travel to Mumbai, the caller insisted that her identity had been misused and said the issue was now being treated as a cybercrime case.
Her call was then transferred to people posing as CBI officials, who allegedly threatened her with arrest and claimed they had strong evidence implicating her.
They warned her not to contact the local police and told her that the criminals who misused her identity were watching her house, which made her fear for her family’s safety.
The fraudsters instructed her to install two Skype IDs, through which a man calling himself Mohit Handa watched her nonstop through her phone camera, saying she was under house arrest.
After two days of surveillance, she was connected to another impersonator named Pradeep Singh, who claimed to be a CBI officer and allegedly abused her, threatened her, and pressured her to “prove her innocence.”
Fraudsters Claimed Real-Time Surveillance, Pushed Woman to Reveal All Assets
She told police that the callers seemed to know her phone activity and whereabouts, which increased her panic and made her trust their threats.
They said she could clear her name only by sharing details of all her assets so they could be checked by the Financial Intelligence Unit under the RBI.
The scammers also showed her fake documents that looked like letters from the Cybercrime Department, signed under the name Nitin Patel.
Between September 24 and October 22, 2024, she turned over all her bank information as instructed.
She was then told to deposit 90% of her assets for verification, and she agreed because of the pressure and threats.
After that, the fraudsters demanded another Rs 2 crore as surety, followed by more payments they described as taxes.
During this time, she stayed under daily video surveillance through Skype while following all their instructions.
On December 1, 2024, she received a fake clearance letter, and on December 6 she went ahead with her son’s engagement despite being physically and mentally exhausted.
The stress she experienced reportedly made her seriously unwell for over a month.
The scammers kept asking for money into early 2025, repeatedly promising that her funds would be returned by February.
After several delays, all communication from the scammers suddenly stopped on March 26, 2025.
In total, she made 187 transfers amounting to Rs 31.83 crore, almost all done through calls and ongoing monitoring on her mobile phone.
She told police she waited until her son’s wedding on June 8 to formally lodge a complaint because she needed time to recover from the trauma.
Police have now started an investigation into the case.
