Rs 1.9 cr frozen in Rs 14.8 cr ‘digital arrest’ targeting NRI doctor couple
NEW DELHI: Delhi Police has frozen Rs 1.9 crore of the Rs 14.85 crore allegedly duped from an elderly NRI doctor couple in a digital arrest scam, even as investigators found that the fraudsters routed the money through more than 700 mule accounts spread across multiple states, officials said on Tuesday.
Police said the funds were first transferred into seven primary bank accounts located across Gujarat, Assam, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Delhi and Uttarakhand. From these, the money was rapidly dispersed into another 200 to 300 accounts before being further layered into several more accounts.
“This multi-layered mule account network has significantly complicated the money trail,” a senior police officer said.
Specialised teams are tracking the transactions with assistance from banks and financial intelligence units. He also said that their main focus is to freeze more at the earliest.
The officer said that efforts are on to identify and freeze more linked accounts, adding that no arrest has been made yet. Police sources said that on December 26, Rs 1.99 crore was sent to Jalukbari in Assam’s Guwahati, followed by consecutive transfers of Rs 2 crore each on December 29 and 30 to Sama Savli in Vadodara. On January 2, Rs 2 crore was routed to Mayur Vihar in east Delhi while Rs 2.05 crore was transferred to Nepean Sea Road in Mumbai on January 5.
“Similarly, money was transferred to different accounts in different states, which adding more complex web of mule accounts which are over 700 in numbers,” the source said.
The case came to light on January 9 when 81-year-old Om Taneja and his doctor wife Indira, 77, residents of Greater Kailash in south Delhi, approached the police after realising they had been cheated.
The couple told police they were kept under “digital arrest” from December 24 to January 9 and coerced into transferring money in multiple transactions. Fraudsters posed as telecom and law enforcement officials, threatened arrest, isolated the victims and used mule accounts linked to shell entities. Police are tracing operators and bank records.
