New Delhi/Bhubaneswar: The Delhi Police has arrested a 27-year-old man from Odisha, along with seven others from separate states, for allegedly duping an elderly NRI couple of over Rs 14 crore through ‘digital arrest’, busting a cyber fraud racket with links to operators based in Cambodia and Nepal, officials said Saturday.
The accused were apprehended from Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha following a multistate operation that exposed the well-coordinated network engaged in impersonating law-enforcement agencies and siphoning off victims’ money through mule bank accounts, they added.
Divyang Patel, 30, and Krutik Shitole, 26, from Gujarat’s Vadodara, Mahavir Sharma alias Neel, 27, from Odisha’s Bhubaneswar, Ankit Mishra alias Robin from Gujarat, Arun Kumar Tiwari, 45, and Pradyuman Tiwari alias SP Tiwari, 44, from Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi, and Bhupender Kumar Mishra, 37, and Aadesh Kumar Singh, 36, from Lucknow have been arrested in connection with the incident, the offi cials said. Sharma, arrested January 19, is a B.Com graduate.
According to police, the victim, a 77-yearold woman living in South Delhi’s Greater Kailash, received a call in December 2025 claiming that a SIM card issued in her name was linked to a money-laundering case. She was then placed on video calls by the fraudsters, who posed as officials from agencies such as the CBI and police, showed her a forged arrest warrant and conducted fake ‘court proceedings’. The victim and her husband were allegedly kept under round-the-clock video surveillance and threatened with dire consequences if they contacted anyone.
Under fear and coercion, they were persuaded to transfer funds, including from fixed deposits and share investments, into so-called ‘RBI-mandated accounts’ for ‘verification’, with false assurances that the money would be returned. A total amount of Rs 14.84 crore was transferred through eight transactions, police said.
An e-FIR was registered at the Special Cell’s IFSO police station in New Delhi January 10 under relevant sections of the BNS, and a special team was formed to investigate the case. Through technical surveillance and an analysis of bank accounts, police tracked the money trail leading to several alleged mule-account holders.
The investigators said the accused acted as facilitators by procuring and operating mule accounts and layering defrauded funds at the behest of the international syndicate, mostly based in Cambodia and Nepal. Police have frozen Rs 2.08 crore of the Rs 14.84 crore duped in the case and seized seven mobile phones and chequebooks during the operation.
Further investigation is on to unearth the entire money trail and identify other conspirators, the officials added.
