Indore (Madhya Pradesh) [India], November 28 : Madhya Pradesh's Indore Crime Branch has arrested two more accused from Punjab and Gujarat in a 2024 'digital arrest' scam, with the people allegedly defrauding a woman of atleast ₹1.60 crore. Police are probing the possible involvement of a larger group.
The two accused have been identified as Patras Kumar (alias Kelis), a resident of Punjab, and Saurabh, a resident of Gujarat. Kumar revealed during interrogation that he was going to go abroad to Laos to get training for such scams, while Saurabh had received his training, according to the Police. Kumar was detained at the Amritsar airport while he was allegedly going abroad.
The total number of arrests in the alleged fraud has come up to 17, according to police.
"In November 2024, there was an incident in which a woman was kept under digital arrest for 3-4 days and was slowly defrauded of Rs 1 crore 60 lakh. After investigation, police have arrested 17 accused in the case, arresting the ones who provided the account and the money transferred," said Indore crime branch's Deputy Commissioner of Police Rajesh Kumar Tripathi on Thursday.
"The police have caught 2 more accused (Patras Kumar alias Kelis and Saurabh). During interrogation, it was revealed that they were going to Laos and getting training there for this. These two are the main accused (Patras and Saurabh), It is possible that more people may be involved in this. We are conducting further investigation," the DCP said.
Police has said that there is a group which trains people to carry out such scams, with multiple people from neighbouring countries, including Pakistan, Nepal, and China, coming to learn to scam women and the elderly, specifically by finding their information through Facebook.
"Apart from them, there are many other people from the neighbouring countries like Pakistan, Nepal, and China who come together and learn the ways of scams in various shifts. Some people were given sifted through various names of women and people between the age of 45-60. They got the names through Facebook and later on accused started talking to them to get information on the victim's financials," the DCP said.
"The whole planning was done through Chinese people. VPN was used with mobile numbers, making it difficult to track them and they repeatedly did such things. These two are the main accused in the case. They both had the role to find various groups of women and get information about their financials," DCP Tripathi said.
The DCP said that that while interrogation, the accused revealed Hindi and English translators were also present, so that people from various countries could converse with each other.