CBI arrests 4 in 7.7cr cyber fraud with BITS Pilani prof

Jaipur: Over one year after a BITS Pilani professor in Jhunjhunu was duped of Rs 7.7 crore in a digital fraud scam, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Tuesday, arrested four key members of an organised cyber crime network from Mumbai and Moradabad for the crime. The arrests were made following searches carried out across 12 locations in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and West Bengal.

The arrested men—two each from Mumbai and Moradabad — are suspected of being key operatives in the organised digital extortion racket that kept the victim under digital detention for over three months.

According to officials, the professor was contacted by cyber criminals posing as officials from the Enforcement Directorate (ED), CBI, and Maharashtra Police. She was manipulated into believing she was under investigation for money laundering and was coerced into paying large sums of money—reportedly over 42 transactions totalling Rs 7.7 crore. At one point, she even took an Rs 80 lakh loan to meet the extortion demands.

During this period, the victim, Shrijata Dey, was forced to report her daily movements and share activity logs every two hours. Her routine, phone access, and digital communications were closely monitored—amounting to what authorities described as a ‘digital arrest'.

After the scam came to light in Feb, police traced around 200 bank accounts linked to the fraud, uncovering that much of the money was routed to foreign banks. This led investigators to suspect an international gang's involvement. Given the scale and complexity of the crime, Rajasthan Police handed over the case to the CBI.

As part of its multi-pronged probe strategy, CBI employed advanced data analytics, profiling, and surveillance techniques to track the culprits. The coordinated searches spanned cities including Moradabad, Sambhal (Uttar Pradesh), Mumbai, Jaipur, and Krishnanagar (West Bengal).

The searches resulted in the seizure of digital and financial evidence—bank account records, debit cards, cheque books, deposit slips, and digital devices linked to the extortion scheme, a CBI spokesperson said, adding that all four accused were presented before the competent court and were remanded to five days of police custody.

The spokesperson said the crackdown was part of the agency's Operation Chakra V, launched to dismantle the infrastructure, supporting such cybercrimes. Investigations are underway, with more arrests likely as the probe progresses.