Mumbai: What began as a probe into a digital arrest scam led cyber police to a high- tech operation where messaging and video calling apps like WhatsApp were cloned dozens of times on the same device before shipping it overseas to facilitate global cybercrime. Four men were arrested from Tripura in this connection and police are looking for their associates. Investigators found this gang had cloned 40 WhatsApp accounts on two devices, using SIM cards registered in the names of unsuspecting Indian citizens, and shipped them to Cambodia. A 2025 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report stated transnational crime groups in East and Southeast Asia have emerged as global market leaders in cyber-enabled fraud, money laundering and underground banking.The digital fraud incident dates back to Dec 2024 when a city-based designer was defrauded of Rs 33.5 lakh. The woman had received a call from an individual posing as a Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) representative, who claimed her mobile number was being used to send threatening messages and it would be deactivated in 2 hours.The psychological pressure intensified as the “Delhi cyber crime department” got in touch with her next. A man posing as “IPS officer Rajeshwar Pradhan” from the department informed her, over video call, that she was a suspect in a money laundering probe. To heighten the ruse, the fraudsters sent her forged documents bearing the official letterheads of the CBI and the Delhi police. She was told an FIR had been lodged against her and she had been placed in “digital custody” for 7 days. On the fraudsters’ instructions, she liquidated her mutual fund savings and transferred Rs 33.5 lakh into a “secret supervision account” for verification. The scammers thereafter vanished. Realising she had been duped, the woman lodged a complaint with the West cyber police station. A team supervised by DCP Purushottam Karad and senior inspector Suvarna Shinde began a meticulous audit of the financial and digital footprints. They discovered her funds had been dispersed across 5 different bank accounts. But the pivotal clue lay in the communication logs. One of the phone numbers was used exclusively for WhatsApp calls, leading cops to a trail that stretched to Tripura.The operation in Tripura revealed an organised logistical chain. According to the police, a SIM card sales agent, Abhijit Sheel, provided SIM cards—registered in the names of unsuspecting Indian citizens—for the racket. To avoid detection, Sheel roped in bus drivers to deliver the cards to co-accused, Pritam S. The driver’s contact details and vehicle number were shared with Pritam in advance.Once in possession of the cards, Pritam would insert them into basic handsets and share the phone numbers with co-accused Shantanu Sen and Shubroto Burman. The gang used third-party cloning apps (available online) to clone 40 WhatsApp accounts in 2 devices. The numbers shared by Pritam were keyed into cloned WhatsApp accounts, triggering OTP on the basic handset.The OTPs were sent by Pritam to Burman and keyed into the cloned WhatsApp accounts. The “loaded” devices were collected by a wanted accused who shipped them to Cambodia. Police suspect the devices were used in scam compounds of Cambodia to make fraud calls globally. The Tripura syndicate reportedly earned lakhs in commission for the OTPs and devices running multiple WhatsApp accounts. From Tripura, the police team—comprising assistant inspectors Nitin Gachhe and Poonam Jadhav, and sub-inspectors Vijay Ghorpade, and Deepak Tayade—arrested Sen, Burman, Sheel and one Jaidev Roy. While Pritam is on the run, the arrests yielded a massive cache of evidence, including 360 SIM cards, fingerprinting moulds, a money-counting machine, laptops, phones and various banking documents.
