In an alarming incident, a man lost his savings worth ₹1.51 crore in a virtual arrest scam operated by unidentified fraudsters as enforcement officers. Image for representational purposes only.
| Photo Credit: PTI
A 68-year-old man from Payyoli has lost his savings worth ₹1.51 crore in a virtual arrest scam operated by unidentified fraudsters as enforcement officers. The incident came to light on November 18 when the complainant, a gulf-returnee, approached the Cyber police for recovering the lost money which was transferred to an anonymous account in two instalments.
Police sources said the man was threatened by the ‘uniformed fraudsters’ during a Whatsapp call with a claim that he had facilitated to open personal bank accounts for the leaders of a banned political outfit for illegal transactions and that he had been under scanner for anti-national activities for years.
He was also grilled by one of the uniformed men pretending to be a senior enforcement officer and asked him to transfer the complete savings to another account which was projected as an account directly being ‘monitored’ by the Reserve Bank of India.
In the preliminary investigation, it was found that the man transferred the money in two instalments last month believing the messages of the unidentified scammers that the money would be returned on completion of the final verification process. The man was reportedly accepting the instructions of the gang as such after they made calls by convincing him with the accurate details of his bank accounts, Aadhaar card number and other personal information.
Cyber investigation squad members said they were in the process of tracking the bank account used to receive the defrauded money. The support of a newly formed panel comprising bankers and police would also be sought to zero in on the suspects, they said.
A senior officer with the Cyber cell said senior citizens were found frequently falling prey to digital arrests despite the aggressive awareness campaigns by the social policing division of the police. “Though there has been a huge drop in the number of such incidents, the scammers have already managed to take away ₹3000 crore from India, mostly targeting the senior citizens, with their changing trickeries,” he revealed.
Police officers with the Kozhikode cyber police station revealed that the urban areas were also witnessing a spike in the number of such incidents. According to them, over 30 cases were registered in Kozhikode city alone within the last 11 months with a total reported loss of ₹16.30 crore. Of the suspects, 11 were arrested apart from the intensified investigation into over 80 registered cases, they added.
Published – November 19, 2025 11:29 am IST
