MUMBAI, Dec. 24 -- An 85-year-old South Mumbai resident was cheated of Rs.9 crore by cyber frauds who posed as police officers and placed him under a "digital arrest". The senior citizen was about to transfer another Rs.3 crore when a bank manager intervened, alerting his family and the police. According to the police, the victim, a retired head of department at a college in Vidyavihar, lives in Thakurdwar, Girgaum, with his elder daughter, while his younger daughter lives in the US. The South Cyber police said the fraud began on November 28, when the man received a call from someone claiming to be a police officer from Panchavati police station in Nashik. The caller falsely told him that money from the bank accounts of a former Popular Front of India (PFI) chairman, OMA Salam, had been routed into his account and that a criminal case had been registered against him. The caller claimed that the matter was being investigated by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). To scare him, the fraudsters warned him that he could be arrested if he did not cooperate. They told him that under the "Digital India" system, people were no longer arrested but rather 'observed online'. Placing him under digital surveillance, they even sent him forged letters from the Reserve Bank of India, along with fake notices claiming to freeze his accounts and a fake arrest warrant too. A video call from a man dressed in a police uniform further intimidated the elderly man, the police added. The fraudsters instructed him not to inform anyone about the digital arrest and extracted details of his family, bank accounts, investments, mutual funds and shareholdings. One of the accused, who identified himself as a police officer named Deepak Sharma, allegedly stayed in constant contact with the victim, sometimes speaking to him for nearly five hours a day. Under pressure, the victim was asked to liquidate all his investments and transfer the funds for 'verification', with assurances that the money would be returned once the inquiry was completed. Trusting the callers, the elderly man transferred around Rs.9 crore through RTGS transactions. He was preparing to transfer an additional Rs.3 crore when he visited the Bank of India's Girgaum branch. The branch manager, noticing the unusually large and repeated transactions, refused to process the transfer and insisted on speaking to the man's relatives. A police officer said, "Once the victim's daughters and relatives were informed and they realised he had been cheated, they immediately contacted the national cybercrime helpline (1930)." The South Cyber Cell then registered a case against unknown persons under sections 318 (cheating), 319 (cheating by personation), 308 (extortion), 204 (personating a public servant) and 336 (forgery) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. During the investigation, the cyber police arrested Sangram Babar, 27, a resident of Satara. The police said Babar had created a fake company, and around Rs.3 crore of the defrauded amount had been transferred into its bank accounts. Investigations revealed that Babar was involved in at least two other cyber fraud cases and had received nearly Rs.4.5 crore in total. "There are seven online complaints registered against him," a police officer said....