Biren Yadav, a digital arrest victim still fighting to recover his funds, at home in Gurugram, India, in September.
Photographer: Elke Scholiers/BloombergInside India’s Scariest Scam — and How to Stop It
“Digital arrests” are bilking Indians out of millions, leaving trauma and distrust in their wake.
On a hot and humid August morning last year, Biren Yadav was alone at his home in Gurugram, a New Delhi suburb, when his phone rang. The call was from a woman claiming to represent the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. The caller seemed to know everything about Yadav, a 77-year-old former Indian Air Force officer. She read out his address, national ID and tax account number — all correctly. “One of your phones is transmitting antinational messages,” said the caller. “Unless the cyberpolice clears your name, we have to freeze all your numbers.”
That was the beginning of Yadav’s “digital arrest,” an elaborate scam that preys on India’s affluent. This is no small-time hustle. One ex-banker says he was conned out of 230 million rupees ($2.6 million) in August, and government data puts the collective toll at 25.8 billion rupees ($290 million) since 2022. But if global trends are anything to go by, that figure, which tracks 242,000 known cases, likely dramatically underestimates the problem. A survey last year by the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, a nonprofit based in The Hague, found that only 28% of financial-scam victims report the crime to law enforcement, while 1 in 5 don’t even try to get their money back.