The Cyber Crime Cell of Chandigarh Police has arrested two individuals in connection with a high-profile ‘digital arrest’ scam in which a retired Army Colonel and his wife were duped of Rs 3.41 crore by cyber fraudsters posing as officials from the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
The arrested accused have been identified as Mahak Yadav (25), a resident of Mohindergarh, Haryana, and Sachin Sharma (23), from Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan.
The investigation is being conducted under the supervision of SP (Cyber Crime) Geetanjali Khandelwal, DSP A Venkatesh, and SHO of Cyber police station Inspector Rohitash Kumar Yadav.
According to the police, the FIR was registered on April 5, 2025, after which a raid was conducted at Narnaul, leading to the arrest of Mahak Yadav.
During interrogation, Yadav confessed that Rs 1.05 crore had been deposited in his account, and he had taken Rs 1.20 lakh as commission. Based on his disclosures, Sachin Sharma was arrested from Jaipur, Rajasthan, on April 7.
Two mobile phones were recovered from the duo, and the police are currently analyzing their data.
The police stated that efforts are being made to identify and trace other beneficiaries of the scam and recover the defrauded amount. Both accused are under police remand and are being interrogated for possible involvement in other cybercrimes.
The victim in this case, Colonel Dalip Singh (Retd), 82, and his wife Ranvinder Kaur, 74, residents of Sector 2A, Chandigarh, were targeted by fraudsters on March 18. The scam began with a call from an international number, alleging Singh’s involvement in a money laundering case linked to jailed businessman Naresh Goyal. The fraudsters, using fake documents and threats of arrest, kept Singh on a continuous video call, placing him under a “digital arrest”.
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Over the course of several days, Singh was coerced into transferring multiple amounts —Rs 8 lakh, Rs 60 lakh, Rs 80 lakh, Rs 88 lakh, and Rs 1.05 crore — into different accounts provided by the scammers, totalling Rs 3.41 crore. The scamsters used various phone numbers to contact the couple and maintained constant pressure using fabricated legal threats.
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