The Coimbatore City Police have invoked provisions of the Goondas Act against three men from Madhya Pradesh who were arrested for defrauding a senior citizen of Rs67 lakh this year. The accused, Ravikumar Sharma (23), Mukul Chandel (24), and Anil Jatav (24), all from Guna in Madhya Pradesh, were arrested by the city’s cybercrime police in July following a complaint lodged by 75-year-old C. George of Ram Nagar in Coimbatore.
According to the police, the trio posed as officers from various enforcement agencies and approached Mr. George with a fraudulent claim that he had been implicated in a criminal case. They told him that his Aadhaar card had been misused to open a bank account and obtain a SIM card, which were allegedly used in a cheating case. Under the pretense of helping resolve the issue, the scammers convinced the senior citizen to transfer large sums of money to them, eventually swindling him of Rs67 lakh.
This scam is part of a larger trend of cyber fraud targeting elderly individuals. In a related development, the city’s cybercrime police revealed that 70 people from Coimbatore had collectively lost Rs5.67 crore in a ‘FedEx courier scam’ in under six months.
Based on the complaint from Mr. George, police tracked the accused to Madhya Pradesh, where they were arrested. In light of their involvement in a major financial fraud and their potential to cause further harm, the Goondas Act was invoked against the trio, allowing for their detention under stringent legal provisions aimed at preventing habitual offenders from engaging in criminal activities.