Enforcement Directorate makes sixth arrest in pan-India digital arrest fraud case

“The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has made the sixth arrest in a money-laundering investigation linked to an alleged pan-India cyber fraud and digital arrest case involving transactions worth ₹30,000 crore,” official sources said on Saturday (October 17, 2026).

According to the sources, Mukesh Kumar Pukhraj Jain alias Mukesh Bhai was taken into custody on Friday (October 16, 2026) and produced before a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Panaji that sent him to ED custody till October 19, 2026. With this action, the total arrests made in the case by the Central agency's Panaji office has risen to six.

It is alleged that Jain acted as an RTGS agent, arranging bank credits into the accounts of the cyber criminal network through brokers in exchange for a commission.

The agency had said in a statement that its probe in the case began following the registration of an FIR by Goa Police on June 9, 2025, after a Goa-based woman was allegedly duped into transferring ₹2.60 crore between May 21, 2025, and June 2, 2025, into some “secret supervision accounts” by cyber fraudsters following her digital arrest.

Digital arrest is a cybercrime in which fraudsters, posing as law enforcement officials, threaten people through audio or video calls, virtually holding them hostage and pressuring them into transferring money online.

The government has said that digital arrest is not legal in India and such crimes should be immediately reported to the national cyber helpline number 1930 or at the web portal cybercrime.gov.in.

The ED found that the money cheated from the Goa victim was put in 400 bank accounts, withdrawn in cash and then converted into foreign currency through RBI-licensed money changers.

Agency officials had said the money trail led to an "inter-connected" network of commodity, trading, travel and forex entities which undertook banking transactions worth more than ₹27,850 crore and ₹2,904 crore deposited in cash, including ₹584.70 crore through 61,448 bulk note acceptance machine transactions at multiple locations in the country.

“The bank accounts of these entities have been identified across as many as 300 cyber fraud complaints and 163 FIRs filed by police and other law enforcement agencies across 20 States and Union Territories, involving an aggregate reported loss of ₹417.49 crore,” the ED said.

It conducted two rounds of searches in this case in Goa and Mumbai in July and the latest on August 21, seizing about ₹3.25 crore in cash. The probe found that shell or dummy companies named drivers and employees living in single-room accommodations as their directors, a classic modus operandi in such cases, according to the ED.