Indore: Following a fraudulent human trafficking and money laundering scheme, a doctor couple suffered a loss of Rs 8 lakh, but were able to recover Rs 5 lakh from the crime branch on Wednesday.

According to the police, the fraudsters impersonated officers from the crime branch in Mumbai and the customer care officer from an international courier company. They were able to extract the money from the doctor couple after keeping them under digital house arrest on the video call.

The couple first received a call from someone pretending to be a customer care officer from an international courier company, claiming a parcel they supposedly sent to Thailand was held due to an Aadhaar number linked to their bank account being associated with Rs 16 crore involved in human trafficking and money laundering.

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When the couple denied sending any parcel, the conman escalated the situation by stating that a senior officer from the Mumbai crime branch would contact them. They then received a Skype video call from an individual impersonating a Mumbai crime branch officer, who falsely claimed that drugs and passports were found in the parcel.

The couple was threatened with severe legal consequences and kept under digital house arrest for 48 hours on the pretext of verification of documents and duped the complainant of Rs 8.36 lakh. Fortunately, the police, led by Additional DCP (Crime) Rajesh Dandotiya, tracked the transaction details and managed to return Rs 5 lakh to the victims.

However, an investigation is underway to recover the remaining amount and identify the accused.

Dandotiya told Free Press Journal, "So far three incidents of digital house arrest were reported from the city and investigation is on to identify the accused in other incidents as well."

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