Panaji: Goa’s Cyber Crime police have arrested the alleged mastermind of the Rs 1 crore ‘digital arrest’ scam Anil Tripathi following his arrival at the Delhi airport from Singapore, police said on Sunday.
Tripathi was taken into custody on August 15 and remanded to five days of police custody, according to Superintendent of Police (Cyber Crime) Rahul Gupta.
The accused, a resident of Marina Bay Financial Centre in Singapore, is the seventh person to be arrested in connection with the case registered in December 2024 at Marna, Siolim, said Gupta.
The case was registered under Sections 318, 319(2), 336(3) read with Section 3(5) of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, and Section 66-D of the Information Technology Act following a complaint from a Marna, Siolim resident.
According to the complaint, a person impersonated as a police inspector of Delhi crime branch between December 26, 2024, and December 28, 2024, and informed the complainant that a police complaint regarding money laundering was registered against her. The accused subsequently sent forged letters to the complainant in the name of Supreme Court of India and compelled the complainant to transfer Rs 1 crore for “safe custody until an investigation was carried out”, by way of several transactions into three separate bank accounts. During the course of investigation, a Look Out Circular (LOC) was issued against Tripathi based on technical and financial analysis and by way of interrogation of the earlier arrested accused in the case. Acting on the LOC, Tripathi was detained at the Delhi airport by authorities on his arrival in India.
Accordingly, a team led by police sub-inspector Anil Polekar and head constable Anay Naik, under the supervision of police inspector Deepak Pednekar and the Superintendent of Police, Cyber Crime, Gupta, proceeded to the national capital, placed Tripathi under arrest and subsequently brought him to Goa on transit remand.
During interrogation, it was revealed that Tripathi has been a habitual offender. According to police, he was earlier arrested in Singapore for his involvement in a fake tech support scam involving 64,000 dollars wherein he fraudulently routed 15,000 US dollars to his Indian accounts belonging to a senior citizen of Singapore. Further investigation into the case is in progress, said police.
