Nagpur, India: Scammers have taken their tricks to a new level by pretending to be the Nagpur Cyber Police to steal money from people. They create fake email addresses that look like they belong to the cyber police, which they use to fool banks into freezing people’s accounts. The scammers then contact the victims, demanding money to unfreeze the accounts, but instead, they steal large amounts of money.

The scam was uncovered by Sweta Kuma Trilochan Panigrahi, an assistant manager at ICICI Bank. Panigrahi received an email from an address that looked very similar to a real cyber police email ID: cyberpolice-nagpur@maharashtrapolice.in. Suspicious of the email, Panigrahi investigated and found out it was fake. He quickly informed the Nagpur Cyber Police.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Nimit Goyal confirmed that this was a new type of fraud. After the report, an investigation led to the arrest of two men, Pradum Anil Singh (26) from Malad East, Mumbai, and Shubham Pitambar Sahu (32) from Mulund West, Mumbai. They are now in police custody until August 14.

During questioning, the men revealed that they had targeted 176 accounts across six banks, including SBI, HDFC, and Bank of Baroda. The police are now looking into how many more people might have been affected.

DCP Goyal warned that cyber scams are becoming more creative and urged people to stay alert. The police are also trying to find out how the scammers got hold of the victim’s banking information, with some suspicion that insiders at the banks may have helped. The police have frozen the scammers’ accounts and returned the stolen money to the victims, but the source of the leaked bank data is still being investigated.