Bhopal: The Indore Police Crime Branch has dismantled two major digital arrest fraud rackets operating in different parts of the country, seizing a massive database containing private details of 20,000 pensioners in Indore.
The police also recovered ten diaries with scripted fraud speeches used to extort victims and three registers documenting thousands of SIM cards linked to the scam.
One of the rackets was run from a fake call centre in the Nehru Nagar area of Delhi, primarily targeting senior citizens nationwide. The other racket, with key players based in Telangana and Rajasthan, defrauded people across India using the same digital arrest scam.
Both rackets had extorted money from two women in Indore in 2024. The Delhi-based operation swindled Rs 46 lakh from a 65-year-old woman by impersonating officials from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in September 2024. Meanwhile, the Telangana-Rajasthan network extorted Rs 12.10 lakh from a young professional in Indore in May 2024.
Last year, in connection with the Rs 46 lakh fraud, the Indore police arrested a father-son duo from Kannauj, Uttar Pradesh. They ran madrasas and allowed the fraudsters to use their bank accounts to stash the extorted money in exchange for a 50 per cent commission. Their interrogation led police to the fake call centre in Delhi’s Nehru Nagar.
On Friday, Indore police raided the call centre, operating from a flat, and arrested 22-year-old employee Ritik Kumar Jatav. Investigations revealed that the racket was managed by a couple, with the husband from Uttar Pradesh and the wife from South India.
They had recruited young fraudsters from UP, Delhi, and South India, specifically targeting senior citizens in Hindi-speaking and South Indian states.
A dark room in the flat functioned as the nerve centre of the cyber fraud operation, which had been active since 2019. The group specialised in IMEI cloning and used thousands of SIM cards from select mobile networks.
“Ongoing investigations in the case so far have revealed that the racket operators particularly targeted senior citizens (pensioners) across the country. A massive data bank containing private information of lakhs of senior citizens, including 20,000 elderly pensioners in Indore, has been seized by our team that raided the fake call centre operating from the dark room in Delhi," said Additional DCP (Crime) Rajesh Dandotiya.
He added, "We’re now working on tracking and arresting the couple who ran the call centre from multiple locations. These sites also functioned as studios where they shot videos of men and women posing as government officials to extort money through digital arrest scams."
In the Rs 12.10 lakh fraud case, which targeted a young professional in Indore, police had earlier arrested two men—one from Jhalawar, Rajasthan, and another from Cyberabad, Telangana.
Further investigation led to the arrest of the racket’s key player, 39-year-old Venkat Nagarjun Reddy, from Chennai Airport just before he attempted to flee to Dubai.
Interrogation revealed that Reddy and his accomplices, guided by handlers in Dubai, had committed multiple cyber frauds not only in Madhya Pradesh but also in Haryana, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh. He was already out on bail in at least three cyber fraud cases in Telangana. Most of the stolen funds were laundered through bank accounts linked to a company named BVN Enterprises.
Police believe the absconding couple from the Delhi call centre might be controlled by operatives in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, where the bulk of the fraud money was ultimately routed.
