Chandigarh Police Arresting 10 Suspects for “Digital Arrest” An Elderly Woman and Defrauding of ₹1 Cr
Chandigarh Police Arrest 10 Suspects for “Digital Arrest,” An Elderly Woman, and Defrauding of ₹1 Cr
Chandigarh, Punjab: 10 individuals from Meerut, Ludhiana, and Amritsar were arrested by the UT cyber cell for defrauding an elderly widow out of ₹1 crore, breaking up a significant online fraud ring. Only ₹36 lakh of the fraudulent sum was successfully frozen by them; the victim will receive the money back following legal proceedings.
The accused concealed the foreign origin of VoIP calls by converting them into local mobile calls using SIM boxes, which are telecom hardware imported from China. Handlers thought to be headquartered in Taiwan, China, Malaysia, and Cambodia were in charge of these operations remotely.
On July 11, 2025, Manjeet Kaur of Sector 33 was the victim of a voice call and a WhatsApp video chat from a man claiming to be “Sunil,” a CBI official. He made up the story that her ICICI bank account and Aadhaar-linked mobile number were being investigated for money laundering. He used WhatsApp to send her a phony bank passbook and forged documents with official seals in an attempt to win her trust. Kaur moved ₹1,01,65,094 into several accounts that the scammers had offered out of fear of legal consequences.
The cyber cell opened an inquiry when she complained, tracing the mobile number that was used in Ludhiana.
About 180 SIM activations were connected to its IMEI, many of which could be traced back to Hapur and Meerut. Parvez Chauhan was detained by authorities during a raid in Meerut on July 24 after he admitted to running a SIM box and receiving $50 USDT (a cryptocurrency) every day from merchants to route foreign calls. He had conversations with international people on his phone regarding call routing and bitcoin.
Vijay Kumar Shah, who had given Krishna Shah his POS ID for SIM activations, was apprehended in Ludhiana as a result of further operations. Without the customer’s knowledge, they activated two SIMs, one from Airtel and one from another carrier, using a single customer’s KYC. Both were of Nepalese descent. Akash Kumar received the second SIM and sold them to Suhail Akhtar for between ₹800 and ₹900 each. After that, Suhail gave them to Shubham Mehra in Amritsar, who ran SIM boxes bearing the Dinstar brand. Shubham was paid ₹25,000 in cash each month after being hired through a Facebook advertisement and Telegram.
Akash Kumar claimed that he had purchased 180 activated SIMs from Ajit Kumar, who had purchased them for ₹250 each from POS operators Saroj Kumar and Abhishek Kumar. For each SIM, Akash paid ₹450. The operation was funded by Vipin Kumar. After appearing in court, each accused person was remanded for questioning.
480 SIM cards, six SIM boxes, 14 cell phones, laptops, routers, and modems were found by the police. They confiscated three phones, 70–80 SIM cards, a Wi-Fi router, and one SIM box from Parvez in Meerut. They retrieved six SIM boxes, around 400 SIM cards, eleven phones, a laptop, two modems, and a router from Shubham in Amritsar.
SIM boxes can store and run hundreds of SIMs at once, transforming VoIP conversations into local calls and evading telecom detection, according to SP (cyber) Geetanjali Khandelwal. Every day, each box may produce more than two million IVR calls.
About The Author:
Yogesh Naager is a content marketer who specializes in the cybersecurity and B2B space. Besides writing for the News4Hackers blogs, he also writes for brands including Craw Security, Bytecode Security, and NASSCOM.
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