Bhopal: In a rare rescue, the police here freed a man who had been held in ‘digital arrest’ for six hours at his own house by cyberfraudsters.
Chief Minister Mohan Yadav on Tuesday narrated details of the operation that was carried out on November 9. “This is perhaps the first such live rescue operation carried out by the Madhya Pradesh police in a case relating to the digital arrest of a person by cyberfraudsters,” Yadav said.
Acting on a tip-off by one Rajiv Oberoi, police went to the house of the victim, identified as Vivek Oberoi, and confronted the cyberfraudsters who were forcing him to share sensitive personal information including that of bank accounts of his and his family members.
“Vivek Oberoi, a corporate entrepreneur based in Dubai, was found locked inside a room in his own house. He was put under intense pressure by cyberfraudsters who posed as senior officers of different government agencies,” state cybercell additional director-general Yogesh Deshmukh said.
The scammers pretended to be from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Mumbai cybercrime branch, and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), and scared the victim into submission by saying that he was found to be involved in a money laundering case. They had coerced him to go live on Skype App to interact with him.
They also threatened to arrest him and his family members and harm them if he revealed them about his digital arrest.
“The cyber fraudsters demanded that the police prove their identity when the latter confronted them. They switched off the video when they found that they were facing the real cops,” the Chief Minister said.
