Odisha Crime Branch Nabs Mother-Son Duo From Ghaziabad In ‘Digital Arrest’ Case

Bhubaneswar: The Crime Branch of Odisha Police arrested a woman and his son from Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh for allegedly duping a senior citizen of Bhubaneswar of Rs 1.38 crore in the name of ‘digital arrest.’

Police said that a team of the Cyber Crime Unit of the Crime Branch arrested mother-son duo – Neelam Aggarwal and Vansh Aggarwal – from Ghaziabad. The accused persons were part of a wider network of cyber fraudsters who were operating a fraud company in the pretext of gaming platform, Crime Branch said in a press release.

On May 22, this year, a senior citizen from Bhubaneswar complained that he got calls from some unknown mobile numbers and a tollfree number. The callers described them as Fedex Courier Office and police personnel from Mumbai Cyber Crime Division. They alleged that the aadhaar card of the complainant has been hacked by some miscreant and it has been used for money laundering. In this connection criminal case has been registered and they threatened that he would have to undergo punishment of three to seven years imprisonment.

They asked him to transfer all of his money to an account suggested by them for verification and stated that later all the amount would be reverted back to his account. They forced him to transfer of Rs 1,37,90,000/- in five transactions from his SBI account as well as from his wife’s SBI accounts to the fraudsters between May 14 and 18.

The Cyber Crime Unit of the Crime Branch, after reviewing the money transactions identified that victim had deposited Rs 1.38 crore in three different accounts and out of that Rs 1.12 crores were deposited in account of Vansheel Software Private Limited. During investigation it was ascertained that Neelam Aggarwal and Vansh Aggarwal of Ghaziabad were the proprietors of the said firm.

The Crime Branch team then went to Ghaziabad and arrested both Neelam Aggarwal and Vansh Aggarwal and brought them on transit remand to Odisha on December 27.

The duo had created around 13 bank accounts for siphoning off the defrauded amount. All the accounts were created at PNB and SBI in different branches at Meerut, UP. The accused persons were previously arrested by Mandir Marg Cyber Crime Police Station, New Delhi in Case No.17/2024, which was also a digital arrest case modus operandi and the cheated amount was Rs.63 lakh approximately. On verification, it has been ascertained that the two are involved in more than 15 cases in different states. Investigation of the case is under progress.