Taiwanese among 17 held in Gujarat for 'digital arrest' fraud

Seventeen persons, including four hailing from Taiwan, were arrested by Ahmedabad Cyber Crime Branch for allegedly operating a nationwide 'digital arrest' racket, a Gujarat police official said on Monday.

Digital arrest is a type of cyber crime in which the victim is made to believe that he/she is under investigation by authorities for money laundering, drug smuggling etc.

The victim is asked to remain in confinement while being accessible to fraudsters via video call and other online tools, hence the term digital arrest.

The victim is then forced to transfer large amounts of money into various bank accounts by the accused in order to be let off.

The gang had 'digitally arrested' a senior citizen for 10 days, kept watch on him via video calls and got him to deposit Rs 79.34 lakh as 'refundable' processing fees to sort out an 'RBI issue', said Joint Commissioner (Crime) Sharad Singhal.

As per police, the senior citizen had registered a complaint that some persons calling themselves officials of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and cyber crime branch had alleged that his account was being used for illegal transactions.

"After receiving a complaint last month, our teams raided places in Gujarat, Delhi, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Odisha and Maharashtra and nabbed 17 persons, including four Taiwan natives, for running this nationwide racket. We believe they may have targeted some 1,000 persons so far," Singhal told reporters.

The four Taiwanese nationals have been identified as Mu Chi Sung (42), Chang Hu Yun (33), Wang Chun Wei (26) and Shen Wei (35), while the remaining 13 are from Gujarat, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Odisha and Rajasthan, he added.

The four accused from Taiwan were visiting India for the last one year and had provided mobile phone apps and other technical support to members of the gang to transfer money from one account to another.

"The mobile app being used by the gang was developed by the Taiwanese accused. They have also integrated online wallets in their system. Money received from victims was transferred to other bank accounts as well as crypto accounts in Dubai using this app. They used to get a commission through hawala on the money they used to route through that app," explained Singhal.

The racket was being run from call centres that were designed to resemble real offices of probe agencies and from which video calls were made, Singhal said.

Police have recovered Rs 12.75 lakh in cash, 761 SIM cards, 120 mobile phones, 96 cheque books, 92 debit and credit cards and 42 bank passbooks related to accounts taken on rent to make transactions, Singhal said.