There Is No Such Thing as a Digital Arrest

The script

The call usually comes from a number that looks official. A courier company says a parcel booked in your name has been intercepted with contraband. The call is then transferred to somebody who introduces himself as an officer of the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Narcotics Control Bureau, the Cyber Cell or the Telecom Department. He knows your name, your address and the last four digits of your Aadhaar, which is enough to make the rest of it sound true.

Then the video call starts. There is a room that looks like a police station, a man in uniform, a national emblem on the wall, and papers on the table with seals on them. You are told that you are under investigation for money laundering, that your bank accounts are being examined, that the matter is sub judice and that you cannot disclose it to anybody, not even your family. You are told to stay on the video call, to remain in one room, and to keep your camera on. You are told that the funds in your account must be transferred to a designated account for verification and will be returned within twenty four hours.

By the time somebody in the family notices that the door has been shut for two days, the money is gone.

Why the entire premise is false

Indian law does not contain any concept of custody, detention or arrest by video call. Under Section 43 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, an arrest is made by actually touching or confining the body of the person, unless there is a submission to custody. It happens in physical space, in the presence of a police officer, in the jurisdiction where the offence is alleged.

Everything else the caller says is equally impossible. An arrested person must be produced before a magistrate within twenty four hours under Section 58. The grounds of arrest must be communicated in writing under Section 47. Under Section 48, a relative or friend nominated by the arrested person must be informed. No investigating agency verifies innocence by asking a citizen to transfer money to a private account, and no court in India conducts a hearing on WhatsApp video at eleven o'clock at night. The Reserve Bank of India has itself said publicly that there is no such thing as a digital arrest.

What the callers are actually committing

The conduct attracts a cluster of offences. Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property falls under Section 318 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, and cheating by personation under Section 319. Pretending to be a public servant is separately punishable under Section 204. Forging the documents shown on camera and using them as genuine attract Sections 336 and 340, and where the forged document purports to be a court order the offence is aggravated. Extortion by putting a person in fear falls under Section 308. Where the operation runs through a syndicate, the organised crime provisions in Section 111 come into play, and the Information Technology Act, 2000 adds Section 66C for identity theft and Section 66D for cheating by personation using a computer resource.

The Supreme Court proceedings

In October 2025 the Supreme Court took suo motu cognisance of the problem in In Re: Victims of Digital Arrest Related to Forged Documents, SMW (Crl.) No. 3 of 2025, after a 73 year old woman from Ambala wrote to the Court saying that scammers had used forged Supreme Court orders to confine her in a so called digital arrest and extract over a crore of rupees. The Court observed that the use of fake court orders strikes at public trust in the judiciary.

A bench led by the Chief Justice of India, Surya Kant, appointed Senior Advocate N.S. Nappinai as amicus curiae and named the Central Bureau of Investigation as the primary agency to investigate such cases. Notices went to all States and Union Territories seeking details of first information reports registered. The Court has since directed the Department of Telecommunications to tighten SIM issuance norms and act against SIM boxes, directed States to operationalise Regional and State Cybercrime Coordination Centres in coordination with the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, and asked why the Reserve Bank cannot deploy machine learning tools to flag rapid transfers into unusual accounts. The Ministry of Home Affairs has constituted a high level inter-departmental committee, and the question of a victim compensation framework is under consideration.

The numbers placed before the Court give a sense of the scale. I4C data records 17,264 digital arrest cases in 2025 with losses of about Rs 644 crore, with several call chains traced to networks operating out of Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar. On restoration, the Court has recorded that money has been restored in 36,290 cases involving an aggregate of about Rs 18.05 crore, with the participation of 57 banks and all States and Union Territories.

That last figure is worth reading twice. Recovery happens, but it is a small fraction of what is lost, and it happens overwhelmingly in the cases reported immediately.

The first hour decides everything

Financial fraud reporting in India works on a golden hour principle. When a complaint reaches the 1930 helpline or the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal at cybercrime.gov.in soon after the transfer, a lien can be placed on the beneficiary account before the money is withdrawn or moved through further layers. Once the amount has been split across mule accounts and pulled out in cash or converted, the trail is largely academic.

So the sequence is simple. Disconnect the call. Do not transfer anything further, and do not send "one last payment to close the file". Telephone 1930 and register the complaint on the portal with the transaction reference numbers, the date and time, the beneficiary account details and the amount. Give a written complaint to your bank branch and take an acknowledgment, and separately email the bank's nodal officer. Then lodge a written complaint at the cyber crime police station.

If the police station raises territorial jurisdiction, the objection is not sustainable. Registration of a first information report is mandatory where the information discloses a cognizable offence, and a Zero FIR can be registered at any police station under Section 173(1) of the BNSS and transferred to the station having jurisdiction. We have written separately on Zero FIR on this blog.

Preserve everything. Call logs, the caller's numbers, screenshots of the video call and of the documents shown, WhatsApp chats, bank statements, transaction references and the emails. Do not delete the chats in embarrassment, which is what most victims do first.

Once the amount stands frozen in a beneficiary account, an application can be moved before the jurisdictional Magistrate for release of the amount to the complainant, under the provisions of the BNSS corresponding to Sections 451 and 457 of the old Code. This requires the investigating officer's report identifying the frozen sum, which is another reason the written complaint has to be precise about figures.

For families with elderly parents at home

The people targeted are usually retired, financially comfortable, and living apart from their children. The scam depends entirely on isolation, which is why the caller's very first instruction is secrecy. Tell your parents, in advance and in plain terms, that no agency in India places anyone under arrest through a telephone, that no genuine officer will ever ask them to keep a case secret from their own family, and that the correct response to such a call is to hang up and telephone their son or daughter.

There is no shame in having been deceived by a well rehearsed operation. There is only cost in waiting a day before reporting it.

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Disclaimer: This blog post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For specific legal issues, you should consult a qualified lawyer.