Unidentified cyber crooks allegedly posed as officials from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to dupe a former district court judge of more than Rs 2.5 crore in Jaipur, police reported on Thursday. According to police, the accused threatened the victim by subjecting him to a ‘digital arrest’ scam, where he was kept under surveillance by the crooks for 15 days.

The incident came to light after a manager from the State Bank of India (SBI) stopped the victim, Ganpay Singh Bhandari, from transferring funds from the Public Provident Fund (PPF) account. After the intervention, a case was registered at the Jyoti Nagar police station in Jaipur on Wednesday evening. 

Crook claims to be CBI officer, threatens arrest

As per the FIR lodged by Bhandari’s nephew, Ravindra Singh Mohnot, the former received a WhatsApp video call from an unknown number on July 28. The caller, who was dressed in a police uniform, introduced himself as a CBI official based in Mumbai. He told Bhandari that the CBI sleuths had discovered a Rs 50 crore hawala transaction and alleged that Rs 40 lakh linked to it had been credited to Bhandari’s bank account.

The crook then allegedly threatened the ex-judge with arrest and warned him against disclosing the matter to his kin. Following this, Bhandari received another WhatsApp call, this time from another crook posing as an RBI manager. He told Bhandari that the money linked to the hawala transaction had been invested in mutual funds and then demanded the details of his financial investments. 

Ex-judge transfers Rs 2.5 cr within 8 days

The complaint mentioned that Bhandari, acting under fear and pressure, shared details of his mutual funds and other financial documents with the crooks, The cyber cheats then instructed him to transfer money into several bank accounts operated by them, claiming the transactions were necessary for the probe.

Police learnt that Bhandri transferred as much as Rs 2,50,51,000 from his SBI account at Gandhi Nagar to the directed bank accounts between August 3 and 10, 2026. Thereafter, the crooks told Bhandari to delete WhatsApp chats, call logs and other messages after each conversation, which, the police suspect, were intended to prevent his family from discovering the fraud. 

Bank manager’s alertness prevents further loss

Later, the fraudsters allegedly directed Bhandari to withdraw funds from his PPF account too. However, when he approached the SBI branch at Jaipur’s Johri Bazaar on Wednesday, the bank manager turned suspicious and stopped the transaction. 

After interacting with Bhandari, the manager realised that the former had fallen prey to a digital arrest scam and alerted him. Bhandari then contacted his nephew, who approached the Jyoti Nagar police and lodged a complaint.

The cops have registered a case under relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and the Information Technology (IT) Act. The investigating police personnel are now delving into the alleged money transfers and are persevering in efforts to identify the people behind the scam.