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Partha Kumar Mukhopadhyay loses ₹1 crore in West Bengal's first convicted digital arrest scam, gang of nine sentenced

Oct 19, 2024Kolkata, India1 source

Summary

Partha Kumar Mukhopadhyay, a resident of Kalyani, West Bengal, received a call from a person posing as a police officer on October 19, 2024, who threatened him with 'digital arrest' and coerced him into paying ₹1 crore to multiple bank accounts. The fraud was traced to a gang operating from Cambodia via a WhatsApp number linked to an Indian SIM card. Nine individuals were convicted in what was the first digital-arrest scam conviction in West Bengal, in a trial that began February 24, 2025, heard 29 witnesses from four states, and resulted in convictions for the gang. The accused had been arrested from Maharashtra, Haryana, and Gujarat. Investigators believe the same gang defrauded 108 victims nationwide, amassing over ₹100 crore total.

Incident Details

Domain
Fraud & Financial
Mechanism
conduct
Platforms
WhatsApp
Companies
Sweet Baby Inc.Punjab National BankCanara BankBandhan BankFederal BankUjjivan Small Finance Bank
Recipient
Group108 victims across India defrauded in the 'digital-arrest' scam
Dimensions
economic

Sources

1
‘Calls from Cambodia, SIM from India’: In a first in West Bengal, 9 convicted of ‘digital-arrest’; fraud - The Times of India
Google News Historical Backfill·Jul 18, 2025

This incident is documented by a single source. Source count reflects coverage in our monitored feeds, not the totality of reporting, and we do not evaluate publication quality.