LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) on Thursday arrested three more accused, including a woman alleged to be the kingpin, in connection with the “digital arrest” case of an SGPGI associate professor, who was duped of over ₹2 crores by cyber criminals posing as police officers.
Those arrested were Haripriya Pradhan of Odisha, her associate Jitendra Kumar Yadav from Prayagraj, and Hitesh alias Gyan Chandra from Ghazipur, according to a press note from the STF.
The trio was arrested near Ekana Stadium after intelligence was gathered by a police team. During interrogation, the accused revealed that they are part of a larger gang that intimidates victims by posing as police or CBI officers, obtaining personal information, and then transferring funds from the victims’ accounts to other accounts managed by the gang.
Earlier, on August 30, six gang members were arrested in Lucknow, including Faiz (aka Adil), Deepak Sharma, Ayush Yadav, Faiz Beg, Mohd. Usman, and Manish Kumar. During the arrest, STF recovered eight mobile phones, passbooks, and HDFC banking kits, including passbooks, ATM cards, and cheque books.
An associate professor at SGPGI Lucknow, Dr. Ruchika Tandon, was duped of ₹2.81 crores after receiving a call from an individual posing as a CBI officer from Mumbai. The caller falsely informed her that her account had been implicated in a money laundering case. Over the next five days, the scammers coerced her into sharing her bank details, effectively keeping her under “digital arrest” and transferring over ₹2 crore from her account.
