Ghaziabad: A 56-year-old Shalimar Garden resident was cheated out of nearly Rs 15 lakh after cons held her under ‘digital arrest’ for nine days. The accused allegedly told the woman her husband’s Aadhaar card had been flagged in a money laundering case and later threatened to kidnap their daughter. An FIR has been registered at Ghaziabad cyber police station.On Oct 1, Usha Rani’s husband received a call from an unknown number. The cons identified themselves as police personnel and told her that his Aadhaar card had been used to open bank accounts that have linked her to a money laundering case. As Rani’s husband is paralysed from an accident, he asked the accused to speak with her.The cons then contacted Rani via WhatsApp video call on her own number. When she picked up, two cons posing as police officers told her they were speaking from the court and that they knew everything about her, including where she lives and what she did.The cons kept her under ‘digital arrest’ via video calls for nine days, talking to her routinely and getting updates on where she was going and what she was doing. The cons forced Rani to give them details on her family and their lives. Eventually, the cons began threatening to kidnap her daughter from college.“They said that if I wanted to be saved from all this, then I should transfer money to the account told by them, otherwise I would be taken in. I became extremely frightened,” she said in her complaint.On Oct 9, she went to the bank and transferred a total of Rs 14,76,000 via cheque to the cons’ account. As soon as the money was transferred, the cons switched off their phones and dropped out of contact. When Rani could no longer contact them, she realised she had fallen victim to a digital arrest scam and approached police to file a complaint.ADCP (Crime and Cyber) Piyush Kumar Singh said that an FIR has been registered against unknown persons under BNS sections 318 (4) (cheating), 204 (personating of a public servant), 308 (extortion) and relevant sections of the IT Act.“We have seized Rs 10 lakh from the bank account the victim had transferred the money to. Further probe is on,” the ADCP said.