Inside the ‘Digital Arrest’ Scam

FILED 01 JUL 2026 · CYBER SOUTH POLICE STATION, DELHI · SOUTH 24 PARGANAS & HOWRAH, WEST BENGAL

On July 1, 2026, the Cyber South Police Station of the Delhi Police announced it had dismantled an organised “digital arrest” fraud network, arresting three men — Samiran Roy, Prince Shaw and Samar Chatterjee — during raids in the South 24 Parganas and Howrah districts of West Bengal.

The case began with a single complaint: a woman told police she had been kept on continuous WhatsApp video calls by fraudsters who falsely claimed she was under “digital arrest,” and was ultimately duped of Rs 7.22 lakh. The callers reportedly posed as officials from the Mumbai Anti-Terrorism Squad, along with fake IPS and CBI officers, and threatened her with legal action until she transferred the money via RTGS.

What makes this case notable isn’t the scam script — by now, “digital arrest” is a familiar pattern in Indian cybercrime reporting. It’s what investigators found when they followed the money.

Following the Money Trail

Police traced the defrauded funds to a bank account in West Bengal, from where they were routed through a chain of additional accounts. That routing is the real story here. The three men arrested weren’t necessarily the ones on the phone impersonating officers — investigators found they were part of a network that supplied mule bank accounts, SIM cards and banking details to the actual fraudsters, effectively running the laundering infrastructure that let the scam operate at scale.

Reconstructed routing — West Bengal case

Victim→WB Bank A/C→Mule A/C→Mule A/C→Handler (untraced)

A search of the three recovered six mobile phones, one laptop, 18 debit and credit cards, 15 SIM cards, and a stack of banking documents — the raw materials of an account-mule operation, not a one-off scam.

This division of labour is becoming the norm in Indian cyber fraud cases: one group builds the psychological pressure over video calls, while a separate, geographically distant group exists solely to supply disposable financial identities — mule accounts and SIM cards — that let the money vanish into a maze of transfers before a victim even reports the crime.

Not an Isolated Case

This bust sits inside a much larger pattern.

JAIPUR
FEB 2026

Delhi Police’s South-West Cyber Police Station broke up a similar racket, arresting three men accused of duping a 75-year-old woman of Rs 16 lakh after a call impersonating a CBI inspector. The accused were supplying mule accounts to fraudsters operating from Cambodia, with proceeds withdrawn and layered through further accounts on instructions from international handlers — a near-identical playbook, just with the command layer sitting overseas.

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NATIONAL
CBI-LED

A CBI-led operation this year deployed more than 60 special teams across 16 states — including Delhi, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Rajasthan — against a network believed responsible for over 200 digital arrest scams, involving fake call centres, dummy bank accounts, and infrastructure built specifically to intimidate victims.

Taken together, these cases point to the same structure: local mule-account suppliers, often young men in semi-urban districts, feeding a laundering pipeline that ultimately serves fraud operations — some domestic, some run out of Southeast Asian scam hubs.

How the Scam Actually Works

The mechanics are consistent across nearly every reported case.

1. The Hook An unexpected call or message claims a problem with your Aadhaar, a courier package, a bank account, or a tax filing.
2. The Escalation The call is transferred to someone posing as a police officer, CBI official, or member of an enforcement agency.
3. The Isolation Victims are told to stay on video call continuously and not contact family, under the pretext of “digital surveillance” or a confidential investigation.
4. The Extraction Under threat of arrest or prosecution, victims are pressured into transferring funds to “verification” or “safe” accounts.