Kasaragod: For three days last December, a 79-year-old general physician in Nileshwar remained inside his home, convinced that he was under arrest. The men on the other end of the WhatsApp call had told him they were officers of the Mumbai Crime Branch. They said his name had surfaced in a money-laundering investigation and that he had been placed under “digital arrest”.

They told him that the money in his bank accounts had to be verified by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and that transferring it to accounts they specified would help him avoid physical arrest.

Police said the fraudsters first contacted the doctor over the phone on November 24, and relentlessly threatened and coerced him to part with his money for verification. He broke down after 20 days.

From December 15 to 17, the elderly doctor transferred ₹1,19,35,000, almost all his savings, through internet banking to three bank accounts.

Around eight months later, Kasaragod Cyber Police arrested Shamsad Churakuth, a native of Edayattur village in Malappuram's Melattur grama panchayat. He was detained as soon as he landed from the UAE at Hyderabad's Rajiv Gandhi International Airport on September 17. "Shamsad works as a plumber in the UAE. We had put out a lookout circular against him," said Kasaragod Cyber Station House Officer - Inspector Rajeevan K.

The Cyber Police were able to zero in on him because he was one of the second-layer beneficiaries of the ₹1.19 crore fraud. "He got ₹9.6 lakh in his bank account in Manjeri. He withdrew it using a cheque and blew up the money," said an officer.

The doctor had transferred ₹1,19,35,000 to the three accounts in Chennai, Mumbai, and Dimapur in Nagaland. The money that reached these accounts was quickly dispersed to about 49 second-layer accounts, said police.

The Nagaland trail
On December 17, the doctor transferred ₹46.25 lakh from his Canara Bank account in Nileshwar to an Axis Bank account at the Purana Bazar branch in Dimapur. From there, ₹9.60 lakh was transferred in two transactions to an account in Shamsad's name at the Central Bank of India’s Manjeri branch.

Police found that Shamsad withdrew ₹9 lakh of this amount through a cheque. “He is a second-layer beneficiary of the fraud. There is little possibility that he was among those who threatened the doctor on video calls,” the inspector said.

The arrest has exposed only one link in a much larger chain. A team from the Kasaragod Cyber Police went to Hyderabad by road and brought him to the district on Monday, September 21.

Police said the doctor's last transaction was on December 17, but he approached the police three days later on December 20, 2025. The police followed the money trail and blocked the accounts that received the money. "We could block only ₹3 lakh," said an officer.

The fraud came to light after his bank manager noticed the unusually large transactions and alerted the doctor’s brother. "He was shattered when he came to the police station with his daughter to file the complaint," he said.