Thane | A 62-year-old retired engineer of the Maharashtra government allegedly lost more than Rs 3.95 crore in a cyber fraud cum sextortion, police said on Sunday.
Police have registered an FIR against a woman and her accomplices after they allegedly lured the victim into a fraudulent international trading scheme and later attempted to extort an additional Rs 2 crore through blackmail.
Sextortion is extortion in which a perpetrator threatens to expose sexually compromising information, such as sexually explicit private images or videos of the victim, if certain demands are met.
The ordeal began on July 17, 2025, when the victim received a WhatsApp call from an unknown number. The woman caller built a rapport with the victim over several weeks, eventually using "emotional appeals" and a "pretence of love" to gain his trust, police said.
She convinced him to open a trading account on a suspicious link, claiming her uncle in the US has provided exclusive access to high-profit international trading.
"Over the next seven months, the victim made 25 separate transactions to various bank accounts provided by the fraudsters. Driven by the promise of massive returns, he even took out loans to fund the investments," police said.
When he attempted to withdraw his supposed profits last month, he received explicit messages and photos from the woman, who then demanded nude photos of the victim under duress.
"On January 25, a man claiming to be the woman's uncle called the victim and threatened to file a rape and molestation case against him unless he paid an additional Rs 2 crore," a Wagle Estate Police Station officer said.
A case has been registered under various sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) for cheating and extortion, along with the provisions of the Information Technology Act.
"We have identified the primary suspect, a woman, and are currently tracing the money trail throughvarious bank accounts used in the commission of this crime," the officer added.
Jammu | Timely intervention by Cyber Crime Investigation Centre for Excellence (CICE) of Crime Branch has secured nearly Rs 40 lakh belonging to a retired Indian Air Force (IAF) officer who lost his hard-earned savings to an alleged 'digital arrest' fraud, police said on Sunday.
The recovered amount shall be remitted back to the complainant's account shortly through court, providing relief to the victim and his family, they added.
CICE Jammu received an online complaint from the retired officer on February 6 regarding a 'digital arrest' which allegedly defrauded him of Rs 52.90 lakh, police said in a statement.
The police subsequently launched an investigation and the bank accounts to which the swindled funds were transferred were traced.
Within three hours of receipt of the complaint, an amount of Rs 11.90 lakh was traced to a suspected account at Jodhpur and was immediately placed on hold by invoking the newly-issued standard operating procedure (SOP) in such investigations, the statement said.
Additionally, the police said a lien (freeze) of Rs 4.90 lakh was marked in subsequent layers of linked bank accounts.
Further coordinated efforts with the concerned banks led to the tracing of an additional Rs 28 lakhs in a second layer of suspected accounts, the police said.
With this, the total amount of Rs 39.90 lakh out of the defrauded sum, has been successfully secured.
The police said this case marks the first operational use of the newly-issued SOP by CICE Jammu, demonstrating its effectiveness in financial investigation.