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Hyderabad: The Cyberabad Cybercrime Police detected seven cases and arrested 15 accused from all over India between June 18 and June 24. They also refunded Rs 2.01 crore to victims in this period.

Most of the accused were linked to trading fraud, with 10 people being arrested in four cases. Four people were arrested in two digital arrest cases and one person was arrested in a job fraud case.

In one of the biggest cases this week, three accused were arrested from Maharashtra for cheating the victim out of Rs 15.15 lakh through digital arrest fraud.

The fraudsters allegedly called the victim pretending to be a Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) official from Mumbai and claimed that their Aadhaar number was linked to Popular Front of India (PFI) activities, money laundering and terror funding offences.

The victim received WhatsApp video calls from persons impersonating police officers and Enforcement Directorate officials who displayed forged documents and fake arrest warrants to claim that criminal proceedings were being initiated against the victim.

The fraudsters then subjected the victim to a ‘digital arrest,’ by continuously monitoring his activities and restricting him from contacting family members or others. They also collected his personal information, bank account details and identity documents under the pretext of investigation and instructed him to send selfies every two hours to confirm his whereabouts.

The victim was eventually threatened into transferring Rs 15.15 lakh over the course of three weeks under the guise of “verification of financial transactions.”

The three arrested accused – Rajan Sammi Sharma, Shrawan Dhanraj Raut and Kamlesh Rameshwar Maraskole – allegedly provided mule accounts to the fraudsters to help route the criminal proceeds in exchange for a commission.