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Arrests Mount in India’s Cyber-Fraud Wave, From QR Tampering to ₹9-Crore ‘Digital Arrest

Police describe an organised syndicate using fake apps, QR tampering, mule accounts to siphon crores.

Overview

  • Delhi Police arrested 19-year-old Manish Verma in a QR code tampering case, seizing over 100 edited and original codes and tracing ₹1.4 lakh diverted through AI-altered merchant QR images.
  • Mumbai’s South Cyber Cell reported an 85-year-old lost ₹9 crore in a ‘digital arrest’ extortion; officers arrested Sangram Baliram Babar linked to a company account that received about ₹3 crore, with multiple related complaints flagged.
  • In a separate probe, Delhi Police detained four suspects tied to a pan-India investment scam, tracing ₹7.16 crore across more than 300 NCRP-linked complaints routed through first-layer mule accounts in Pune and Hyderabad.
  • Cyberabad police registered a case after a 35-year-old Hyderabad IT worker allegedly lost ₹1.04 crore to a bitcoin investment fraud initiated via a matrimonial profile before dying by suicide.
  • Investigators across states reported seizures of phones, edited QR images, phishing URLs and suspicious APKs, while cyber teams and bank staff intervened in some cases to halt further transfers, including a ₹60 lakh prevention in Neemuch.