Berhampur: A teacher couple from the Kukudakhandi police station area in Ganjam district was defrauded of Rs 34.5 lakh through digital arrest by cybercriminals, police said Thursday. The scam came to the light after the woman lodged a complaint at the Berhampur Cyber and Economic Offenses police station Wednesday.
According to the complaint, the woman’s husband received an unknown call January 20. The caller, posing as a TRAI official, claimed that his SIM card would be deactivated within two hours. The victim’s phone number is also linked with his Aadhaar card. The caller falsely accused him of involvement in a Rs 2.38 crore money laundering case registered at the Kolaba police station in Maharashtra. The caller further alleged that an arrest warrant had also been issued against him. When the teacher’s wife got involved, the fraudsters connected with her via WhatsApp video calls from four different numbers.
During these calls, they impersonated police officers and a Supreme Court judge to convince the couple of the fabricated charges, ultimately coercing them into transferring the money. Fearing consequences, the teacher transferred Rs 30 lakh from her account at the Ankushpur branch of State Bank of India (SBI) to Bethel Mission School in Madhya Pradesh December 21. The next day, she made another transfer of Rs 4.5 lakh via RTGS from the SBI’s Bijipur branch in Berhampur to a different account. Scammers had threatened that all the money in her bank account would be transferred to the Reserve Bank and that she would only get it back after an investigation. They also warned that both she and her husband would be arrested if she failed to deposit the money. Even after making the transfers, the cyber fraudsters continued to call and intimidate the couple.
Finally, the teacher approached the manager of the Ankushpur SBI branch to discuss the issue. Upon realising she had fallen victim to cyber fraud, she fi led a complaint at the police station. Police registered a case (12/25) and launched an investigation.