Cybercrime police conduct digital arrests awareness programme for bank employees

COIMBATORE: The Coimbatore city cybercrime police are conducting an awareness programme for bank employees to prevent digital arrest fraud, which often targets elderly people.A cybercrime police officer said, "Digital arrest scams often target elderly people with significant deposits in their bank accounts. The fraudster, who calls the victims over a WhatsApp video call, introduces themselves as police officers. They further claim that an illegal transaction was made using the victim's Aadhaar number. They also tell them that they are under digital arrest and collect all the information about their savings in the bank account.Further, the fraudster asks them to transfer the money, which will be refunded once the verification process by the Reserve Bank of India is complete. Since the fraudster appears in a police uniform and a setup like a police station, the victims, out of fear, withdraw cash from their bank account and deposit it in the account the fraudster provides.“In order to prevent these scams, we are conducting awareness programmes for bank employees and instructing them to inform the police if elderly people approach them to withdraw more than Rs 10 lakh from their fixed deposits. So far, we have conducted awareness programmes for three banks and are planning to conduct them for every bank in the city," a police officer said.