New Delhi: CBI has conducted searches at 80 locations in 16 states in connection with over 200 cases of digital arrest scams in which the accused used a fake website of the Supreme Court to deceive people, officials said Thursday.
Around 60 teams of the agency swooped down at 80 locations across the country in the operation launched earlier this week. The operation culminated with the arrest of two accused individuals, B Naresh and Sanjib Saha, from Chennai and Kolkata respectively, they said.
The arrested suspects were allegedly involved in the incorporation of shell companies and the opening and operation of mule bank accounts.
“These accounts were reportedly used for laundering approximately Rs 2 crore of suspected proceeds of crime,” a CBI spokesperson said in a statement.
The action followed an FIR by CBI, registered on a complaint from the Supreme Court registry, that fraudsters were allegedly deceiving victims under the guise of digital arrest using a URL similar to the Supreme Court website.
“The CBI recently unearthed a fraudulent website bearing a URL deceptively similar to the official website of the Supreme Court of India. The fraudsters allegedly used this fraudulently registered domain to deceive victims under the guise of digital arrest. Based on a complaint received from the Registry of the Supreme Court of India, CBI registered an FIR and commenced investigation into the matter,” the spokesperson said.
