3 min readBengaluruMar 22, 2026 05:18 PM ISTThe fraudsters allegedly held the senior citizen in digital arrest for six week (Image generated using AI).The crisis of “digital arrest” scams has claimed another high-profile victim in Karnataka, with an 81-year-old businessman losing over Rs 15 crore in a six-week-long psychological ordeal. This case involved impersonation of CBI officials and threats linking the victim to Jet Airways founder Naresh Goyal.The fraud came to light on March 18 when the businessman approached the Belagavi CEN police and filed a complaint. According to the FIR, the fraud took place between February 5 and 18. The victim received a call around 9.15 am on February 5 from a person claiming to be CBI Director K Subramanya.The caller claimed that there were two active SIM cards in the victim’s name and that he was in contact with Jet Airways CEO Naresh Goel. He claimed that Rs 25 lakh was laundered for Naresh Goel, and in return, the victim received Rs 5 lakh in commission.The cyber fraudsters then allegedly threatened to arrest the victim if he did not cooperate with the investigation. Then, the accused, posing as CBI officials, obtained the victim’s financial information, including his fixed deposit (FD) details and stock portfolio, as per the FIR. The accused allegedly made him sell his shares and forced him to transfer the money to their accounts.While the victim was under digital arrest for more than a month, he allegedly transferred Rs 15.45 crore from February 7 to March 9The police launched an investigation and recovered Rs 90 lakh by freezing a bank account. Belagavi police commissioner Borse Bhushan Rao Gulabrao established a special team to apprehend the accused.In the Belagavi district, last March, Diego Santan Nazareth, 82, and Flaviana, 79, residents of Khanapur, died by suicide after allegedly losing Rs 50 lakh to cyber fraud under digital arrest. The police later arrested Chirag Jeevaraj Bhai Lakkad, a resident of Surat in Gujarat.Story continues below this adThis year, on March 8, a research scholar lost nearly Rs 5 crore in a similar fraud. Separately, a 78-year-old woman from Indiranagar, Bengaluru, was defrauded of Rs 38 lakh by criminals impersonating National Investigative Agency (NIA) officials, who kept her under “digital arrest” before coercing her into transferring funds. She received a call on March 11, with callers alleging her documents had been misused in a money laundering and pornography case.Between January and February 2026 alone, the state lost Rs 11.6 crore to digital arrest fraud, with only Rs 25.2 lakh recovered. Over the period from January 2023 to February 2026, these scams have collectively extorted over Rs 468.6 crore from victims across the state.Between 2023 and 2025 (till November 15), Karnataka lost 5,473.97 crore in 57,733 cybercrime cases, but has recovered only 11.5 per cent of it.Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd