A 74-year-old woman and two-and-a-half months of ‘digital arrest’ torture: The horrifying inside story of India’s biggest cyber fraud Bengaluru Digital Arrest Scam: ₹24 crore cheated from an elderly woman by showing fear of CBI-ED, this is how the last amount was saved

Digital arrest scam Bengaluru 2026 : Such a sensational and horrifying case of cyber crime has come to light from Bengaluru city, which is called the Silicon Valley of India, that not only the general public, but even the major investigating agencies of the country have been stunned. Fraudsters, posing as fake officers of the Central Investigation Agencies (CBI and ED), trapped a 74-year-old elderly woman. By threatening her, he kept the woman under ‘digital arrest’ for several days and extorted around Rs 24 crore, committing the biggest fraud in the history of the country.

Zee News According to , the victim of this inter-state cyber fraud is Lakshmi Ramamurthy, an elderly woman resident of Bengaluru. However, Karnataka State Cyber ​​Command Unit has promptly busted this entire syndicate and succeeded in arresting 6 accused from different states of the country.

Severe torture of being in front of the camera for two and a half months

This whole game did not start suddenly, but the fraudsters dragged it on for a long time as part of a well-planned conspiracy. According to the investigation report, this dreadful sequence started from 10th February and continued till 24th April. The criminals called Lakshmi Ramamurthy and introduced themselves as senior officers of CBI and ED. He pressurized the woman to say that a huge money laundering (fraud) case had been registered in her name and that she was involved in a serious illegal scam. The elderly woman fell into deep mental stress due to fear of public shame and going to jail.

Fear of digital arrest: The fraudsters gave strict instructions to the woman not to talk about this to her family or anyone close to her. They were forced to remain in front of their phone or computer cameras 24 hours a day, i.e. ‘digital arrest’. After this, strong pressure was created to transfer the money from his ICICI Bank account. The elderly woman living in fear within two and a half months 26 different transactions total through Rs 23,92,30,000 (about Rs 24 crore) Transfers were made to 23 mule (middleman) accounts of 10 different banks named by the criminals.

The last capital saved due to the wisdom of bank officials

Even after recovering such a huge amount, the greed of the criminals did not end. They wanted to make the woman completely poor. On April 24, when all the cash and bank balance kept in the woman’s house was exhausted, the criminals pressurized her for more money. 74 year old Lakshmi Ramamurthy was forced to reach her nearest ICICI Bank branch to take a gold loan of Rs 3 crore against her gold jewellery.

Here the alert manager and officials of the bank saw winds blowing on the face of the elderly woman and sensed her unusual behaviour. When they looked at the woman’s account records, they realized there was deeply suspicious activity, given the huge number of transactions that had taken place over the past few months.

Digital arrest scam: figures at a glance

The bank manager immediately gave a strong information about this to the Karnataka Cyber ​​Command Unit. The special team of cyber police immediately reached the bank without wasting any time. Only when he assured the victim of complete security and explained the whole thing to her calmly, did the woman realize that she was not a part of any government investigation, but had become a victim of an international fraud gang. Due to the promptness of the police, his Rs 3 crore was saved from falling into the hands of criminals.

Police crackdown on nationwide network

As soon as the matter came to light, Karnataka Police immediately registered an FIR. With the help of National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP), all the bank accounts where the fraudulent money was sent were immediately tracked. Showing promptness, the police immediately froze the amount of more than Rs 4 crore present in different accounts, while Rs 1.46 crore has been successfully recovered after the court order.

To completely destroy this nationwide syndicate, the police conducted raids in many states and arrested 6 main accused. The arrested accused were handling this network from different corners of the country:

• N. Shivajnanam (Erode, Tamil Nadu)

• Akkach Malik (Mumbai, Maharashtra)

• Palak Bhai Patel (Ahmedabad, Gujarat)

• Amit Narendra Patel (Ahmedabad, Gujarat)

• Om Prakash Rajput (New Delhi)

• Gaurav Kumar (Bihar)

Police have also seized 6 mobile phones used in the crime from these accused. According to Karnataka Cyber ​​Command Unit, this is a very large and well-organized gang. At present, all these arrested accused are being rigorously interrogated so that the main mastermind of this entire racket and their handlers sitting abroad can be traced.