Sivaganga man cheated Rs 46.5 lakh; two arrested

MADURAI: A senior citizen in Sivaganga was cheated of Rs 46.5 lakh by cyber criminals who posed as a Bengaluru police officer and threatened him with “digital arrest”. Police on Saturday (October 10) arrested two persons in connection with the case and recovered Rs 7 lakh from one of them.

The Sivaganga District Cyber Crime police said the two accused, Hitesh Sanjshetti (33) and Syed Rahman (44), both of Coimbatore, helped the criminals transfer the money through mule accounts to Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

According to the investigating officer, the fraudster contacted the complainant claiming to be a Bengaluru police officer. He told the complainant that his Aadhaar card had been used in wrongful activities and that he had been “digitally arrested”.

To convince the senior citizen that he was a police officer, the fraudster showed him a WhatsApp status picture with police emblems and the Indian flag. “The fraudster threatened the senior citizen that the police had got approval from the Supreme Court to arrest him,” the officer said.

Once the complainant was frightened, the fraudster took psychological control of him and offered a way out of the arrest, asking him to deposit money. “Then they shared the mule accounts to transfer the amount,” the officer said.

The complainant then transferred all his savings to the two mule accounts, police said. He deposited Rs 20 lakh in one account and Rs 26.5 lakh in the other. The fraudster also directed him to tell bank staff, if they raised any doubts, that the transfer was for a land purchase.

Police said the money was moved through several layers of mule accounts. They suspect that the caller who posed as the police officer is the main accused, and that one of the accounts may belong to him. The caller is yet to be arrested.

Police said that when they took Rahman into custody at Coimbatore and questioned him, he said he worked as a mule account agent and had shared his account for the fraudulent transfers. He allegedly set up a fake firm and bought bank accounts from several people, which he used for illegal money transfers, police said. Police recovered Rs 7 lakh from him.

Rahman was arrested by Tirupur police in 2023 in a similar case. Hitesh Sanjshetti allegedly assisted him in this fraud by providing SIM cards.

A case was registered at the Sivaganga District Cyber Crime Police Station under Sections 318(4), 319(2) and 308 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Section 66(D) of the Information Technology Act. Both accused were remanded in judicial custody.