Daijiworld Media Network - Kolkata
Kolkata, Dec 18: A 74-year-old retired ONGC employee was allegedly cheated of Rs 99 lakh after cyber fraudsters posing as Mumbai Police officers kept him under a so-called “digital arrest” for four days, police said on Wednesday.
The victim, Gautam Kumar Ray, a resident of Ashwininagar in Baguiati, lodged a complaint with the Bidhannagar commissionerate’s cyber-crime police station, stating that the fraudsters coerced him into prematurely closing his fixed deposits and transferring his life’s savings to their account.
According to police, the accused first contacted Ray on November 29 through phone calls and WhatsApp messages, claiming to be officers from Mumbai Police headquarters. They alleged that a SIM card registered in Ray’s name was being used to make ransom calls and death threats to businessmen in Mumbai.
The impostors further told him that the SIM was linked to an operative of the banned Popular Front of India and that a criminal case had been registered against him. Ray was warned not to speak to his family or step out of his house, failing which he and his family would be arrested and taken to Mumbai, where he would be jailed for life.
Police said the fraudsters kept Ray under constant video surveillance, forcing him to remain on video calls for hours at a stretch, sometimes for nearly seven hours.
On December 1, the callers claimed that the Reserve Bank of India was verifying his bank accounts and assured him that his money would remain “protected” only if he disclosed all his assets. Under severe mental stress, Ray revealed details of two fixed deposits and a savings account, amounting to over Rs 1 crore.
The following day, acting on the fraudsters’ instructions during a video call, Ray visited his bank, prematurely closed his fixed deposits and transferred Rs 99 lakh via RTGS to a current account provided by the gang.
Believing that the money would be returned within three days, Ray later realised he had been cheated when the amount was not credited back and calls to the fraudsters went unanswered.
Police have registered a case of cheating, impersonation, criminal intimidation and misappropriation of funds. Officials said efforts are underway to trace the money trail, identify the account holders and analyse digital evidence, including call records, WhatsApp chats and forged documents. Requests to freeze the beneficiary account have also been initiated.