Maharashtra news: Senior citizen from Thane duped of ₹3.57 crore. Here’s what happened

In a shocking incident, a 74-year-old retired bank worker in Maharashtra's Thane was duped of ₹3.57 crore. An official said the elderly man was threatened by a scammer impersonating a police officer during a video call, as reported by news agency PTI.

Here's what happened

The victim is a resident of the Ulhasnagar area. According to the PTI report, the senior citizen received a WhatsApp video call from a person who made him talk to another person claiming to be a policeman.

The imposter threatened the victim and made him transfer a sum of ₹3.57 crore into different bank accounts, the official from Central police station said, as quoted by PTI.

Following the victim's complaint, the police filed an FIR on Tuesday against the unknown scammer under Section 318(4) (cheating) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and relevant sections of the Information Technology Act. However, the FIR did not detail the specific threats made to the victim.

Digital arrest fraud in Mumbai

In another such incident, a 77-year-old woman from Mumbai was kept under "digital arrest" for a month by cyber fraudsters who posed as law enforcement officials and made her transfer ₹3.8 crore, claiming her Aadhaar card was used in a money laundering case. 

The woman's ordeal began a month ago when an unknown man made a WhatsApp call and told the victim that a parcel sent by her to Taiwan contained MDMA drugs, five passports, a bank card, and clothes. When the homemaker, who lives with her retired husband in south Mumbai, told the caller that she didn't send any parcel, the person said details of her Aadhaar card were used in the crime, a police official said on Wednesday.

The caller then connected the woman to a "Mumbai Police officer" who told her that her Aadhaar card was linked to a money laundering case under investigation.

(With inputs from PTI)