A 77-year-old woman from Mumbai was kept under “digital arrest” for a month by cyber fraudsters who posed as law enforcement officials and made her transfer Rs 3.8 crore, claiming her Aadhaar card was used in a money laundering case.
The woman’s ordeal began a month ago when an unknown man made a WhatsApp call and told the victim that a parcel sent by her to Taiwan contained MDMA drugs, five passports, a bank card, and clothes.
When the homemaker, who lives with her retired husband in south Mumbai, told the caller that she didn’t send any parcel, the person said details of her Aadhaar card were used in the crime, a police official said on Wednesday. The caller then connected the woman to a “Mumbai Police officer” who told her that her Aadhaar card was linked to a money laundering case under investigation. “The caller asked the woman to download the Skype app and told her that police officers would talk to her. She was ordered not to disconnect the call and disclose the matter,” the official said.