3 Men Pretended As Income Tax Officers, Defrauded Navi Mumbai Woman of Rs 1.8 Crore
3 Men Pretended As Income Tax Officers, Defrauded Navi Mumbai Woman of Rs 1.8 Crore
Recently, Police in Navi Mumbai caught a gang that was cheating people through an online scam called “digital arrest.” Individuals in this gang were pretending like officers of government and cheated people. Three men, Ramesh Babulal Seth (45) and Amish Deepak Tulsidas Shah (42), both from Mumbai, and Rajkumar Gelaram Narang (55) from Ahmedabad, were arrested by the Central Crime Unit (CCU) of Navi Mumbai police. Seth and Shah have been sent to jail by a local court, while Narang will remain in police custody until May 30.
The gang used a clever method to cheat people. They made fake official letters using the names and logos of important government agencies like the Income Tax Department, CBI, ED, and the Supreme Court. Then, they pretended to be officials from these agencies. They showed these fake letters to their victims and threatened them with “digital arrest” through online video calls to force them to send money.
Digital arrest is a type of scam where fraudsters act like police or government officers on video calls and threaten to arrest people unless they pay money to the accounts given by the scammers. The gang was caught while police were investigating a big cyber fraud case reported between January and February 2025. In this case, a female doctor was tricked by the gang. Where the gang defrauded her of around Rs. 2 crore.
The release said, “The fraudsters claimed they were from the Income Tax department, and told her she had evaded taxes and she had a company in Vazipur, New Delhi. They further told her an amount of Rs 8,62,30 was due from her and a complaint had been made in writing with the Delhi police.”
The scammers sent fake letters on WhatsApp pretending to be from government agencies. Scared by this, the doctor transferred nearly Rs. 1.8 crore from her bank accounts and investments into six different bank accounts that the scammers gave her.
When she realised she had been cheated, she went to the police and filed a complaint. On February 17, the Cyber Police Station registered an FIR (First Information Report) against the scammers under various laws, including the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and the Information Technology Act. To catch the gang, police formed three teams that searched and arrested the three men.
The police investigation found that the arrested men and their wanted accomplices had set up fake companies and worked together as a crime group. They rented shops to run these fake companies and opened many bank accounts in the companies’ names. They got internet banking, debit cards, and mobile SIM cards linked to these accounts.
The scammers made video calls to victims, threatened them with arrest, and cheated them into sending money. From the gang, police recovered Rs 1,13,500 in cash, one laptop, 18 mobile phones, 18 cheque books, 32 debit cards, 33 cheques, 27 SIM cards, two bank passbooks, rubber stamps for 10 fake companies, and documents used to open bank accounts of 10 companies.