In every conventional story there are the good guys and the bad guys. The story and news revolving around digital arrest scams is one with a twist.
Here the bad guys or the scammers pose as the good guys. The scammers pose as cops, custom officials or someone working with the government.
The innocent common man becomes the victim who is the target of such scams.
These scamsters play with the psychology of the victim and scare him so much that he happens to transfer all the money in his bank account to these criminals.
The intense grip of the Digital arrest scammers
A family from Noida Uttar Pradesh lived the horrors of a digital arrest for 5 days.
Faced with the trauma of the digital arrest they ended up transferring 1.1 crore rupees or close to 1,26,731 United States Dollars to the scammers account in a number of transactions
The family fell victim to a well laid out trap
Even though there are efforts going on to educate the masses about these scams, the cases of such scams are on the rise especially in India that boasts of a major chunk of its population being connected to the internet and using a number of digital services like money transfer and online banking using the internet.
How did the Paliwal family fall into this trap?
As per the information coming from the police department. The victim by the Name of Mr. Paliwal lodged a complaint that he got a phone call on the first of Feb. from an unknown phone number.
The caller gave him clear instructions to contact the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and he also said that the SIM card of Mr. Paliwal would get blocked.
Later he informed the targeted victim Mr Palival that his case has been transferred to Mumbai and is being investigated by the Cyber Crime Branch in Mumbai.
Subsequently Mr. Paliwal received another call and this time the person posed as a police officer.
Over a video call he informed Mr. Paliwal that he was calling from Kolava Police Station in Mumbai.
All these steps are part of the digital arrest scam where a lot of pressure is put on the target victim who is then coerced to shell out money.
As per the ploy the scammer posing as the police officer from Mumbai accused the Victim Mr. Paliwal that he was accused of extortion.
He put more pressure on him saying that the Central Bureau of Investigation or CBI was investigating the case for money laundering.
The plot thickens
To make the scam even more severe Mr. Paliwal's wife as well as his daughter also received video calls and they too became targets of this Digital arrest scam.
The scammer posing as a government official threatened them and said that they too would be arrested in case they did not pay the sum of money that the scammers were demanding.
The scam stretched for 5 days
The Paliwal family had to endure the ordeal for 5 days and in the process they shelled out over 1.10 Crore Indian rupees. The money got transferred to the account specified by the scammers who successfully duped the targeted family of this large sum of money.
At the time of writing the post the matter is being investigated.
How to safeguard oneself from such digital arrest scams.
The scammers are getting better at their game. The best thing to do is not to take calls or video calls from unknown numbers.
In case you do pick up the scammers can get their way. Thus the moment you discover someone is posing as a police officer, disconnect and block the number.
Inform the police and the cyber cell as soon as you can. There is a small window of time in which the receiver's bank account can be frozen and the money can be recovered.
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