What the call looks like
It usually starts with a phone call or a message claiming to be from a courier company, a telecom provider, or a bank. A parcel in your name has been found with drugs in it, or your Aadhaar has been used to open accounts for money laundering, or a SIM registered to you is sending abusive messages. Within moments the call is transferred to someone who says they are from the Crime Branch, the CBI, or the Enforcement Directorate.
The second caller is calm, formal, and in a hurry. They may appear on a video call in what looks like a police office, in uniform. They may send an arrest warrant, an FIR copy, or a court order with real-looking seals and the names of real senior officers. Everything is designed to make the situation feel official and the clock feel short.
The pressure: 'you are under digital arrest'
The victim is told they are now under digital arrest. They must stay on the video call, must not disconnect, must not speak to family or colleagues, and must not leave the room, because doing so will be treated as flight. Any hesitation is met with threats of immediate physical arrest and a case that will take years.
Then comes the way out. The money in the victim's accounts must be 'verified' by transferring it to an account the caller provides, after which it will be returned once the investigation clears them. It is never returned.
The isolation is the mechanism. A person who cannot consult anyone for hours, under sustained threat, will make decisions they would never make with a second opinion in the room.
The scam does not rely on the victim being foolish. It relies on the victim being alone.
What the law actually says
There is no concept of digital arrest in Indian law. No police force, no central agency and no court can arrest a person over a video call, hold them on a call, or require them to remain in a room under observation. The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), a wing of the Ministry of Home Affairs, has said so directly in its public advisories, and the Reserve Bank of India has warned account holders in the same terms.
Real arrest is physical. Under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, an arrest involves an officer present in person, and the arrested person must be produced before a magistrate within twenty-four hours. None of that can happen over Skype or WhatsApp.
How genuine police contact differs
For offences punishable with up to seven years' imprisonment, the law expects police to issue a written notice of appearance under Section 35(3) of the BNSS, the successor to Section 41A of the old CrPC, rather than arrest. The Supreme Court in Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar (2014) laid down that arrests in such cases must not be automatic.
How that notice may be served matters, because scammers imitate it. In January 2025, in the Satender Kumar Antil proceedings, the Supreme Court held that these notices cannot be served by WhatsApp, email, SMS or any other electronic means. Service must follow the modes the BNSS itself prescribes. A notice that arrives only as a message or an attachment is not valid service, whatever it looks like.
Questioning, when it happens, happens in person, at a police station, and you are entitled to know which station and which officer. No investigating agency asks a person to transfer money to prove it is clean, to be held in a 'safe account', or to avoid arrest. A demand for money is, by itself, the proof that the call is not what it claims to be.
- ›Real police do not arrest anyone by video call, and do not hold anyone on a call.
- ›Real notices are not served by WhatsApp, SMS or email. The Supreme Court has said so.
- ›Real investigations never ask you to transfer money anywhere.
- ›Real officers do not object to you hanging up and calling the station back on its published number.
If it is happening to you, or has happened
End the call. Nothing you have been told obliges you to stay on it, and nothing bad follows from hanging up. Call 1930, the national cyber crime helpline, and report the incident at cybercrime.gov.in. If money has already moved, report it immediately; the sooner a transfer is reported, the better the chance of freezing it before it is withdrawn.
Speak to someone. The scam depends on you not doing that, which is the clearest sign that you should.
Where FIRSetu fits
FIRSetu exists because FIRs are public records that state police already publish. If someone shows you an FIR and says it is against you, the fastest way to find out whether it is real is to look at what the police actually published, at the station they name, for the date they claim. A forged document does not appear on the state's portal.