GUWAHATI: The Directorate of Enforcement (ED), Guwahati Zonal Office-I, has issued a Provisional Attachment Order under the PMLA, 2002, attaching about ₹2.12 crore lying in 43 bank accounts.
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The accounts are held with Axis Bank, Bank of India, Federal Bank, IndusInd Bank, Punjab National Bank and State Bank of India. The case involves a "digital arrest" scam targeting a senior citizen of Guwahati.
The ED probe began on an FIR registered by the Cyber Police Station, CID, Assam, under various sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, and the IT Act, 2000, against unknown fraudsters.
Investigators found that between September and December 2025, fraudsters posing as officials of TRAI, Mumbai Crime Branch and the CBI contacted the victim. They falsely claimed a bank account opened with his Aadhaar was linked to money laundering and placed him under a "digital arrest" over WhatsApp video calls. He was shown fabricated court proceedings and a fake "Digital Arrest Warrant," made to report his presence every two hours, and threatened with detention under the National Security Act if he told anyone.
Under the pretext of an "RBI inspection" of his family's funds, and later a fake "bail bond," he was made to transfer about ₹2.13 crore in 19 transactions to accounts specified by the fraudsters. To raise the money, he liquidated fixed deposits, mutual funds and shares, and took loans against his pension account and insurance policies.
ED found the money first went into "mule" accounts and was quickly split and routed through multiple layers of accounts held by individuals, firms and companies across the country. It was then withdrawn in cash, converted into digital currency, sent to payment gateways or moved onward to conceal the trail. The transactions were wholly inconsistent with the account holders' declared profiles, indicating an organised network of mule accounts run by the cyber fraud syndicate.
By tracing the money trail, ED identified 43 accounts that still held balances. These have been provisionally attached under Section 5(1) of the PMLA to prevent the proceeds of crime from being dissipated. Further investigation is underway.
