SGPGI doctor's mother put under digital arrest, loses Rs 18 lakh in 7 days

Lucknow: Amid rising cases targeting doctors, a recent case of credit card fraud and money laundering fraud has not even left its family members after a 69-year-old woman, the mother of a doctor from Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGI) fell victim to a scam losing Rs 18 lakh. She was threatened and kept under digital arrest for seven days. 

The woman, a retired teacher, was forced and threatened to transfer the amount into different accounts for seven days to avoid being imprisoned in a criminal case as implicated by the fraudsters who posed as police and CBI officials. She is the mother of a PGI doctor and her daughter-in-law is also a doctor at the same institute and lives in the old PGI campus. 

The scam began on November 5 when the woman received a call from someone claiming to be a customer agent from a public sector bank. The caller claimed that her name was linked to a credit card fraud case. Without allowing her to respond, the caller transferred the call to another individual posing as an officer from the Mumbai Crime Branch.

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In her police complaint, the woman described her incident as reported by TOI, "I received a call on my mobile at 10 am on Nov 5. The thugs kept on threatening me on WhatsApp calls for seven days. One of the callers introduced himself as a customer agent of a PSU bank. He told me that my name had come up in a case involving credit card fraud. Before I could say anything to him, he said we were transferring the call to the Mumbai crime branch. Then he disconnected the call. After some time, another WhatsApp call came. The caller introduced himself as an officer of the Mumbai crime branch."

She further said, "The caller introduced himself as an officer of the Mumbai crime branch. He asked for my Aadhaar number and account details and said that a case of money laundering was registered in my name and that my bank accounts had to be investigated. I am transferring the call to CBI."

Afterwards, the woman received another WhatsApp call from an unknown number who threatened to send her whole family to jail, saying that she was an accused in a money laundering case. The woman was accused of both credit card fraud and money laundering cases by the fraudsters to scare her into allegedly giving the money.  

"Scared by this, I gave information about the money in all the bank accounts. To save me, he asked for money and told me to keep it secret even from my family. When I told him I cannot transfer the money online, he told me to go to the nearest bank and deposit the money. I went to a nearby bank and withdrew money from the account and deposited Rs 5 lakh in the given account. In the next seven days, I deposited about Rs 18 lakh in different accounts. The fraudsters kept taking updates from me every moment," she said in the police complaint. 

Further, she said, "The callers used to make video calls every hour. During the video call, they kept such an atmosphere that it seemed like they were calling from a police officer. This scared me more. I used to go to the bank by making an excuse from home. After coming from there, I used to mostly stay in the room. Seeing me upset, my son asked me the reason for this many times, but I avoided it. However, on Nov 12, they called on WhatsApp and asked me to break all the FDs and deposit them in the account."

The incident came to light after she confessed the ordeal to her son and daughter-in-law after they grew suspicious of her behaviours. On this, the doctor filed a complaint at the cyber police station on Friday. Acting on the complaint, an FIR has been registered and an investigation is underway. 

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