Overview
- Ahmedabad Cyber Crime Branch arrested 12 alleged facilitators after an 82-year-old was held on near round-the-clock video calls and duped of Rs 7.12 crore between December 16 and 26.
- Investigators say the accused provided mule accounts, with 238 bank accounts identified, 16 phones seized, and roughly Rs 10 lakh recovered so far.
- Police report the money was converted to USDT through Telegram channels and transferred overseas, with links cited to a Chinese-run operation based in Cambodia.
- In Hyderabad, an elderly businessman was kept under a fabricated 'digital arrest' from late October and coerced into transfers totaling about Rs 7.31 crore.
- The Telangana Cyber Security Bureau has registered a case and is tracing Signal app footprints and bank trails to follow the money and identify the suspects.