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Delhi Police Make 3 Arrests in Rs 14.85-Crore ‘Digital Arrest’ Case as Crackdown Expands to Investment Rackets

Investigators describe a layered mule-account pipeline that pushes victims’ transfers offshore via crypto, stalling full recovery.

Overview

  • IFSO officials arrested Divyang Patel and Krutik Shitoli from Vadodara and K. S. Tiwari from Prayagraj for routing about Rs 6 crore from the Greater Kailash NRI doctors’ case through mule accounts, including a fictitious NGO account.
  • Police say only a small fraction of the Rs 14.85 crore stays in the formal banking system, with funds rapidly split across hundreds of accounts before conversion through crypto or hawala channels.
  • In a separate probe, Delhi Police arrested eight members of an interstate stock-investment fraud syndicate linked to handlers in Cambodia, tracing nearly Rs 4 crore moved through mule accounts in just 14 days and connecting at least 63 complaints.
  • Days earlier, a 70-year-old Greater Kailash resident lost Rs 6.9 crore under a week-long ‘digital arrest’; three primary recipient accounts were traced to Kolkata, Delhi and Chhattisgarh, and over Rs 2.89 crore was frozen.
  • Kadapa police arrested nine in another ‘digital arrest’ racket, detailing coercive video surveillance, forged documents and crypto laundering, and identifying a financial ecosystem exceeding Rs 22 crore tied to mule operators.