In a new form of cybercrime called “digital arrest”, scammers masquerading as law enforcement trapped a woman in a web of fear and manipulation. Over just five days, she lost ₹5.85 crore and her battle to recover it reveals how India’s rapid digital banking boom has outpaced the safeguards meant to protect its citizens.
The Trap: Fear, Coercion, and a Webcam Trial
Meherlina Dutt’s descent into financial and psychological ruin began with a routine phone call one that would eventually cost her over ₹5.8 crore (US$663,000). A caller, posing as a courier official, claimed that a drug-laced parcel in her name had been seized en route to China. The tone swiftly changed from polite to threatening. Soon, she was speaking with people claiming to be from Mumbai police and Narcotics Bureau.
What followed was five harrowing days of 24/7 surveillance via Skype, where Meherlina was manipulated into believing she was under “digital arrest”, a term coined by fraudsters who simulate legal processes virtually complete with fake courtrooms, fabricated documents, and terrifying accusations.
Under constant watch, she liquidated investments, pledged her gold, and wired enormous sums to accounts dictated by the scammers. “After that, my brain stopped working. My mind shut down,” she recalled in her statement in an interview , which first reported the case.
The Banks: Billions Moved, Zero Red Flags
Her money trail is both staggering and damning. Over ₹2.8 crore moved from HDFC Bank India’s largest private lender to an account in ICICI Bank titled under “Mr. Piyush.” Meherlina alleges that despite these being 200 timeslarger than her typical transactions, no one at the bank flagged the sudden transfers not her relationship manager, not the fraud detection team.
She questioned how ICICI allowed such funds into a nearly dormant account and why it failed to trigger AML (anti-money laundering) safeguards. Within four minutes of landing in ICICI, most of the money was siphoned off into 11 accounts in Sree Padmavathi Cooperative Bank, an affiliate of Federal Bank in Hyderabad.
Eight of these accounts had fake addresses, and most were mule accounts created using others’ identities including a widow, a carpenter, and a rickshaw driver. Shockingly, the former director of the cooperative bank, Samudrala Venkateshwaralu, was arrested and remains in jail, accused of opening these accounts to facilitate laundering.
Despite this massive breach of trust, the banking ombudsman dismissed Meherlina’s complaints against both HDFC and ICICI, citing a 2017 guideline that shifts liability onto customers if the fraud stems from their own transactions—even under duress.
The Aftermath: Courts, Capital Gains, and a Shattered Life
A year later, Meherlina has only recovered ₹1 crore of the ₹5.85 crore she lost. Her pleas to HDFC, ICICI, and cooperative banks have yielded little relief. Instead, she finds herself taxed on the fraudulently withdrawn funds since the money came from redeeming long-term investments that attracted capital gains taxes.
Now, she and several others have filed a joint petition before India’s top consumer court, accusing the banks of deficiency of service, negligence, and failure of due diligence. The case is scheduled for hearing in November 2025.
Her lawyer who represents a dozen digital arrest victims, says India’s banking system is “abdicating its responsibility to protect customers” and even “abetting financial suicide” by failing to monitor accounts effectively or intercept mule account networks.
The case is more than a personal tragedy it is a glaring signal of systemic failure. In a country where digital adoption has soared, cybercrime protections, regulatory accountability, and customer redress mechanisms remain dangerously outdated.
While nations like the UK have revised banking liability laws, requiring banks to reimburse scam victims, India is yet to implement such safeguards.
Source: Social Media
The Identity of the victim has been changed to an imaginary name.