Hyderabad/Delhi: In the 72 hours to 3 September 2024, a 39-year-old digital marketing executive from Gurugram liquidated her mutual fund holdings and withdrew all her fixed deposits, collating the money into a single savings account held in HDFC Bank. And then she made a fateful transfer.
That transfer— ₹5.85 crore through six cheques—wiped out all her savings.
It began with a random phone call. The callers said that they were from the income tax department; that discrepancies had been noticed in her tax returns; that there were suspicious transactions in her bank account.
Multiple Microsoft Skype calls followed. On the video, she could see men in dark coats; some identified themselves as cops and supreme court judges. They even flashed identification cards. This time, they pointed to an international money laundering investigation where her bank account was seemingly compromised.
“They knew where my son studied, and they were absolutely spot-on about his school name, and even which grade he studied in,” the executive, who earlier worked as a vice president in a multinational consumer company, said. “If I didn’t follow what they were saying, they threatened to detain my son until the investigation is complete. That is what broke me,” she added.
It didn’t take her too long to realize that she had just been defrauded. She had succumbed to a digital arrest—a tactic used by cybercriminals to falsely accuse one of breaking the law—often orchestrated through a sophisticated network involving many individuals and banks.
In this case, that orchestration was nothing short of the non-linear screenplay of a Quentin Tarantino masterpiece.
The next 48 hrs
The executive was asked to transfer all the money she had— ₹5.85 crore—into an ICICI Bank account, one held by a 26-year-old from Jhajjar, Haryana, called Piyush. He is a student in a local college, investigators told Mint.
From here on, the money was distributed to 28 accounts held with different banks. Eleven of these accounts had been opened at the Sreenivasa Padmavathi Cooperative Urban Bank (SPCUB), a relatively unknown cooperative bank in Hyderabad, about 20 minutes away from the swanky Cyberabad district that houses some of the biggest tech offices in the country.
Between 4 and 5 September 2024, Gundam Shankar and Sai Krishna received ₹1.61 crore in their respective bank accounts held at the cooperative bank. A person called Royya Shardha received ₹41 lakh. Mint couldn’t verify the names of the other account holders who received money but none of them were high net worth individuals. Months of police investigations found that most of them were daily-wage labourers who held these accounts under various low-income welfare schemes.
More transactions followed. Money deposited in the 28 accounts were further distributed across a web of 136 bank transfers. The largest block of money transferred was ₹20 lakh, in three instances. The final recipient of these large amounts? Blockshift Solutions Private Limited, a company registered in September 2023 in Bansi, Uttar Pradesh, investigations showed. The company, which describes itself as a “wholesale trading” firm in its filing with the ministry of corporate affairs, has no digital presence.
An email sent to Shiva Kant Chaudhary, who is listed as a director of this company as per the database with the ministry of corporate affairs, did not receive any response.
Apart from HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and the cooperative lender mentioned above, banks involved in this web of transactions also include Federal Bank.
Detailed questionnaires sent via email to HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Federal Bank did not elicit any response.
What is more intriguing, however, is the involvement of the little known cooperative, SPCUB, in the entire money trail. One of the bank’s nine directors, Samudrala Venkateswarlu, is under arrest.
Mint visited SPCUB in Hyderabad, spoke to bank officials, investigators and lawyers. Multiple court filings and police complaints were reviewed to piece together this account of digital fraud, a growing nuisance that is now executed in an institutional manner.
Speaking at a conference on 10 February, Union home minister Amit Shah said that between January 2020 and 30 November 2025, the reporting portal of the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre was accessed over 230 million times. As of 30 November 2025, more than 8.2 million cybercrime-related complaints had been registered on the portal, of which 184,000 were converted into first information report (FIRs), and a large number of complaints were resolved. Of the total fraud amount of ₹20,000 crore, about ₹8,189 crore were either frozen or returned to the victims.
The bank with two employees
Mint visited SPCUB in November last year. A blue-yellow signage outside the bank cited its registration number (TB-497) and its licence number (UBD-AP-1638P).
Nonetheless, as of today, there is no mention of the bank’s existence on the central government’s National Cooperatives Database (NCD), which listed 1,471 such banks. The bank, however, is listed in the Reserve Bank’s list of non-scheduled cooperative banks.
An email sent to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), seeking details, did not receive any response.
Meanwhile, SPCUB’s registered address is different from where it currently operates from. While the registered address is at MRR Complex in the city’s Dilsukhnagar area, the current location of the bank is at Saroornagar, about 3 kilometres away.
When this reporter visited the bank, it only had two employees sitting inside its solitary branch, with its black collapsible gates shut. Neither of the two employees entertained questions around what services they offered, the change in address, or if any of the bank’s directors were available for an interaction.
“You can call on our official number and talk for more details,” one of the two employees said.
Mint, however, did manage to speak with P. Srinivas Rao, chairman of SPCUB, over phone. He refused to meet.
Rao declined to comment on questions about the bank’s involvement in digital arrest crimes, ongoing police investigations and complaints against it across various courts (yes, the bank is involved in more cases, apart from the digital marketing executive’s), and the arrest and repeated denial of bail to Samudrala Venkateswarlu, the director mentioned earlier.
Rao, in fact, declined to acknowledge the arrest calling the matter “judicially sensitive”. At the same time, he said that there is “no case” and “no digital arrest”.
When this reporter asked Rao if the bank will take any steps against its director’s arrest, or if it would respond to an ongoing lawsuit at the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (the apex, quasi-judicial consumer court in India), where it finds itself at the centre of police reports and crores in fraud allegations, he gave a rather vague and unrelated response. “You do not know the meaning of digital arrest, and I will not be speaking with you because it is only a matter of seconds to create a fake identity. Today’s newspaper is tomorrow’s waste-paper,” Rao said.
Mint attempted to contact Venkateswarlu through one of his lawyers, Yoginder Bhardwaj, many times. The lawyer could not be reached.
Venkateswarlu was arrested by the Gurugram Police in September 2024 for his alleged association with the marketing executive’s digital arrest case. Bail was refused at least four times.
Mint reviewed a copy of the judgement issued by Sandeep Chauhan, the additional sessions judge, Gurugram, on 31 July 2025. It marked the third denial of bail against Venkateswarlu. The court acknowledged his involvement in forcibly onboarding Royya Shardha, mentioned earlier in this story—she was lured into opening a bank account on the pretext of being given a job. ₹41 lakh was deposited in her account on 4 September 2024. The next day, the money was transferred to other accounts.
Mint hasn’t been able to independently speak to anyone allegedly forced into opening bank accounts.
On 14 October 2025, Venkateswarlu was denied bail for the fourth time at the Chandigarh High Court. Mint has seen a copy of the order where the court ruled in favour of the investigating body, Haryana Police.
SPCUB’s outlet mentions Rao as the bank’s chairman, in a blue board listing key executives. It also lists M. Ram Reddy as its vice-chairman, and seven other directors. Venkateswarlu’s name was missing. The list showed two vacant director slots.
Rao refused to answer if the bank had removed Venkateswarlu as a director.
The ‘voluntary’ transfer
At present, SPCUB remains under investigation at the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission.
Mahendra Limaye, the lawyer representing the digital marketing executive, said that SPCUB was the only bank to have not submitted its response to the commission. Three key parties—HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Federal Bank—have all responded.
Rao, when asked about if SPCUB will respond to the Commission, said, “You should ask the source bank— HDFC Bank—for details. If the source bank is saying it was not theft, then there is no crime. There is no response for us to give.”
Rao’s statement underlines how complicated such fraud cases are. Victims can find themselves overwhelmed by definitions and legal technicalities.
“Responses by ICICI Bank and Federal Bank claimed that a consumer, by definition in India’s consumer law, has to be a direct customer of a bank for the latter to fall under legal jurisprudence of the commission,” Limaye said. “Since the victim in question (the executive) was a customer of HDFC Bank, both the banks responded claiming that they could not be held liable under law,” he added.
HDFC Bank’s response cited the bank’s operational policy, which states that if a customer asked for a bank transfer, and voluntarily authenticated it, the bank’s employees are not required to intervene in the process. The marketing executive had voluntarily transferred ₹5.85 crore.
Mint reviewed copies of the responses filed by HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank.
The next consumer court hearing is set for “sometime in March,” Limaye said. Nonetheless, the court might wait for directives from the Supreme Court, which is hearing a criminal suo moto writ petition on digital arrests.
SC steps in
In the Supreme Court, senior counsel N.S. Nappinai is representing the public interest as amicus curiae, while Chief Justice Surya Kant, who took office on 24 November, is hearing the matter. Limaye is an intervenor (a third party) for a party of 12 digital arrest victims, including the marketing executive.
Recommendations have been made before the Supreme Court for specific government bodies to take responsibility in case of digital arrest thefts, including the department of telecommunications, India’s telecom operators and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
On 9 February, chief justice Kant held the latest hearing, where it urged the ministry of home affairs to strictly implement RBI’s operating procedures regarding suspicious transactions. Kant further noted that between April 2021 and November 2025, “more than ₹52,000 crore” was stolen through digital arrest frauds.
A directive was issued to the ministry to issue a framework for better coordination between investigative agencies in order to reduce the time between a complaint being registered and bank accounts being frozen.
Nappinai, as per a report on the hearing, suggested mandatory use of artificial intelligence to flag errant transactions. She declined to comment for this piece as the matter is sub judice.
The Supreme Court will hear the case again on 16 March.
Cybersecurity lawyers concur with Nappinai when it comes to the use of technology.
“There is definitely a need for a robust trust-based framework. With artificial intelligence systems, there is technology that is capable of verifying transactions better. Banks must be held accountable to use these systems for the protection of the common person,” Pawan Kumar Duggal, a cybersecurity lawyer, said.
“While there could be legitimate large transactions that end up being flagged, the idea behind a certain law is always to err on the safer side—which is a principle that should be followed without a doubt especially in the case of digital arrests,” he added.
The apex court’s actions could impact the fate of both large and small banks. With murky accounts and few checks, they may face considerably larger compliance tasks, going ahead. For the marketing executive who lost her savings, it could mean a small win.