IIT Delhi graduate and bank manager arrested in Mumbai digital arrest fraud

What happened

Mumbai Cyber Police have arrested six men, including an IIT Delhi graduate and a private bank operations manager, for allegedly running a sophisticated "digital arrest" scam that conned a 68-year-old retired businessman out of Rs 1.12 crore.

The suspects are accused of terrorising the retired resident from Dahisar, Mumbai, keeping him under virtual hostage in his own home for nearly two weeks between 30 July and 12 August.

The arrested individuals have been identified as Gaurav Mahesh Goyal, a 40-year-old web developer and IIT Delhi graduate; Shikhar Mukesh Tyagi, a 28-year-old private bank operations manager; Rajesh Kumar Mohanlal Jain, 54; Mohammad Tariq Anwar Momin, 49; Ajay Kumar Kaliprasad Sharma, 35; and Chintankumar Sureshbhai Desai, 46.

How the scam worked

According to Mumbai Police, the fraud began with a phone call from someone pretending to represent the Department of Telecommunications. The caller claimed the victim's Aadhaar details had been used illegally to open mobile connections linked to a Rs 238-crore money laundering case in Delhi.

The victim was then transferred to a man calling himself "Vijay Khanna," who claimed to be a police officer. Khanna and his associates escalated the pressure by initiating WhatsApp video calls. To make the deception convincing, they wore police uniforms and displayed fake legal documents complete with government logos and official-looking letterheads referencing the "Govt Affairs, Supreme Court of India."

The scammers threatened the victim with immediate public disgrace and warned that his family would also be arrested if he spoke to anyone about the investigation. Coerced by these threats, the victim was forced to report his location via video call every two hours. Over the next fortnight, he liquidated his fixed deposits and transferred Rs 1.12 crore into various bank accounts provided by the gang.

The ordeal only ended when the victim's daughter discovered what was happening and contacted the police.

The money trail

A team led by Deputy Commissioner of Police Bajrang Bansode, along with senior inspector Pramod Kamble and inspector Sunil Lokhande, traced the stolen funds through a complex web of accounts.

Part of the money was routed to a bank account belonging to a gold trading company. Police discovered that while the account was registered to the firm's director, Rajesh Kumar Mohanlal Jain, the SIM cards linked to the account were in the possession of Mohammad Tariq Anwar Momin, who is believed to have managed the network's mule accounts.

According to investigators, Momin placed the SIM cards into new mobile phones and handed them to Tyagi, the bank manager. Tyagi and the IIT graduate, Goyal, then used the devices to receive and forward one-time passwords (OTPs), allowing the scammers to authorise transactions.

Desai then took one of the active devices and travelled from Mumbai to Delhi, and subsequently to Bijnor in Uttar Pradesh, where the gang withdrew the cash or moved it to other mule accounts.

During the arrests, investigators seized 20 mobile phones, two laptops, 25 bank accounts, ATM cards, and fake identity documents. Police also revealed that Goyal, the IIT graduate, was previously booked by Bandra police in a separate cheating case in 2021.