This, unfortunately, is Anjali’s story, and as a new resident of India, she is living that financial nightmare. She became the victim of an advanced “digital arrest” scam and lost 58.5 million rupees ($663,390). It began with a very innocent phone call. What ensued was a five-day ordeal in which she was pressured to cash out her retirement savings and wire thousands of dollars. The financial fallout from this scam has left Anjali with her financial life in tatters. At this point, she’s rightfully calling out specific banks on their obvious lack of preparation.
Last September, that was exactly the phone call Anjali’s family received. The caller said that she was being investigated for engaging in illegal activities—and the nightmare started. The con artists posed as members of law enforcement agencies. They intimidated her, threatening to confiscate her properties if she failed to meet their demands. For five days straight, Anjali emptied out her life savings. She moved funds around obsessively from account to account, deeply fearful that this was her only option to avoid jail time.
Anjali has fought to get her money back. So far, all she has been able to recover is 10 million rupees of the multi-billions she lost. Her investigative journey has led her and us to raise serious questions about the practices of both ICICI and HDFC, two of their affected banks’ branches. Anjali wants to know why ICICI permitted four fund transfers into a suspicious account. She says she’s come to understand that account played a role in the scam. She argues that HDFC ignored specific, red-flagging warnings. They failed to fire the alarms even for transactions far exceeding her usual withdrawal sizes.
Anjali’s normal transactions were an average of 200 times smaller than what she was forced to wire. This mismatch is already prompting major concerns about the banks’ lack of oversight and regulatory failure. She spent hours collecting data to follow the path of her dollar. Consequently, she produced a meticulous flow chart showing how her money was directed into eleven accounts at Sree Padmavathi Cooperative Bank, an affiliate of Federal Bank in Hyderabad.
“I challenged everything, every assumption, every figure,” Anjali said. Would the magnitude of transfers I executed totally within the span of less than three days not have been sufficient to trigger suspicion and even stop the crime beforehand?
Her fight is not solely with the purse string. Now Anjali is suffering under an additional burden. She’s left now having to pay income taxes on the very money that was stolen from her. All of this has deepened her economic crisis. It has led to her feeling sold out by the same institutions that were supposed to look out for her best interests.
Anjali now has the daunting challenge of trying to get her stolen money back. For the past year, she has been an unyielding warrior, rushing between police departments and courtrooms, demanding justice. She has joined with the other victims to sue India’s highest consumer court. The court accepted their nonprofit standing argument based on the blight of “deficiency of services” caused by the banks’ redlining.
Lawyer Mahendra Limaye speaks on behalf of Anjali’s case. He’s doing so because he is passionately fighting for justice for a dozen victims affected by similar scams. In the end, Limaye stresses the role of banks in protecting their customers’ best interests. He stated, “Banks have a duty of care towards customers. If a bank observes any activity in an account that is inconsistent with its overall transaction patterns, it must stop that transaction.”
The emotional impact on Anjali has been devastating. “After that, my brain stopped working. My mind shut down,” she recalled, reflecting on the overwhelming nature of her experience. The psychological effects from having been duped and financially emptied have deflated her spirit.
While Anjali’s fight continues, she highlights a critical issue facing many victims of digital scams: recognition and support from regulatory bodies. Presently, there is absolutely no acknowledgement of such crimes on the part of the Income Tax department. This exacerbates the financial misery of victims,” she said.