BENGALURU: Conmen defrauding vulnerable people in the name of “digital arrest” has become rampant and it is affecting the country’s economy, said the city civil and sessions court in Bengaluru on Monday.
The court rejected the anticipatory bail applications filed by two persons from Andhra Pradesh who are accused of being involved in a scam.
The accused, Mattigunta Ravi Kiran and Vaidu Sanath, are partners of Ladkart Enterprises LLP in Guntur district, to whose account Rs 1.38 crore had been transferred out of Rs 4.91 crore extorted from the complainant.
Judge Mala ND of the 64th Additional City Civil and Sessions Court said, “As rightly pointed out by the prosecution, there is a prima facie case against them at this stage. In the event of the grant of anticipatory bail, it would certainly affect the investigation and make it difficult for the investigating agency to secure them.”
The accused, claiming that they are innocent of the alleged offences, said they have been falsely implicated. They said their bank account has been misused, possibly through hacking or phishing.
According to the prosecution, SR Raj Gopalan filed a complaint on March 8, 2026, alleging that he received a call on his landline number from an unknown person on December 2.
The caller told him that a criminal case of human trafficking has been registered against him at the Ballari police station. The caller then hung up the phone, saying Gopalan would receive a call from the inspector.
Later, Gopalan received another call from a mobile number. The caller, identifying himself as Sandeep Rao, told him that the complaint has been transferred to the CBI and asked him to send his Aadhaar details through WhatsApp, which he did.
After that, Gopalan was sent the copy of an ‘FIR’ and he started receiving video calls from several mobile phone numbers. The callers, wearing police uniforms, told him that they were “CBI police” officers. They told him that he was under “digital arrest”, and he was not supposed to speak to anyone for the next three hours.
They said he would later receive instructions on WhatsApp, which he had to follow. They also threatened his wife and demanded money from the couple to drop all criminal cases against them, failing which they said the Supreme Court would take up the case.
Between December 17 and February 23, Gopalan and his wife transferred Rs 95.22 lakh, Rs 76 lakh, Rs 1.02 crore, Rs 23 lakh and Rs 1.38 crore – total Rs 4.91 crore – to various bank accounts as directed by the accused. When their demands continued, Gopalan approached the cyber police.