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Mumbai police’s cybercrime department has arrested two people from Bihar and Jharkhand for allegedly defrauding an accountant of ₹48.60 lakh in a ‘Boss scam’ between August 14 and August 16, in which the accused impersonated the complainant’s CEO on WhatsApp. It was also found that the accused were allegedly linked to almost seven similar cases across India.

The ‘Boss Scam’ or CEO impersonation fraud is when fraudsters impersonate senior company officials like CEOs or directors and convince employees to transfer large amounts of money from corporate accounts. According to an advisory by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre on June 22, 2026, cybercriminals target high-ranking officials and executives by delivering malicious archives via email or WhatsApp under the guise of urgent regulatory compliance. Once executed, the malware compromises the executive’s Windows device and active Web WhatsApp sessions, enabling the fraudsters to message subordinate employees and orchestrate fraudulent financial transfers.

A case was registered on February 26, 2026, under Sections 338(3) and 319(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), read along with Sections 66(C) and 66(D) of the Information Technology Act. The accused were produced before the Girgaon magistrate court on August 19, where the court remanded them to police custody from August 20 till August 25.

Investigation revealed that the two accused allegedly had connections with eight people who were arrested earlier on July 25, 2026, and were involved in similar Boss/CEO scams in Mumbai and committed fraud of around ₹10.40 crore, of which ₹6 crore was retrieved by the police so far, Cybercrime branch Constable Pratap Jadhav said.

According to the police, other than two cases in Mumbai, there are one case each in Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, West Bengal, and Tamil Nadu, which are linked to the two accused, that are registered in the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal.

According to Bajrang Balsode, DCP, South Cybercrime, the complainant, an accountant at a pipe company in Mumbai, was contacted by an unknown number on WhatsApp, who claimed to be the CEO of the company. “The fraudster used a bogus SIM card and changed the name and profile picture of the WhatsApp account to match the actual CEOs. He told the accountant that he was in a meeting and very busy, and that he needed money transferred into an account. The accountant, thinking it really was his boss, transferred the money, amounting to ₹48.60 lakh. Upon further investigation, the police found that the amount was transferred to a mule bank account in Kolkata,” Mr. Balsode said.

After the complaint was filed, the police investigated the fake CEO’s number and allegedly traced its SIM to the source in Rukundi Pur, Bihar, where they arrested Aamir Chand Mohammad Khan, a point of sale Airtel SIM vendor on August 14, 2026. That further led to arresting his accomplice, Suraj Kumar Pradeep Kumar Saw, also known as Vishal, from near Jamtara in Jharkhand on August 16, 2026, according to Assistant Police Inspector Ramdas Gopal.

According to Mr. Gopal, the SIM card used to scam the accountant belonged to a soldier in the Army, who had returned home in Bihar on a break from his duty somewhere in Telangana, and wanted to port his Jio SIM card to Airtel. “Khan asked him for his documents to do an e-KYC and set up the SIM. He activated the SIM but told the soldier that there was a problem with the system and it could not get processed, so it was not possible to activate the SIM. He then sent the SIM to his accomplice in Jharkhand to commit the Boss fraud against the accountant,” Mr. Gopal said. Khan had also illegally activated SIMs of other residents from Bihar using misused documents and E-KYC and allegedly sold 8 SIM cards to co-accused Vishal for ₹6,000 via UPI, according to the police.

The police have allegedly seized 161 SIM cards, a megaphone and a POCO phone with the ‘Airtel Mitra’ app to activate the SIM, from the accused.

The police have allegedly held the entire defrauded amount of ₹48.60 lakh and the investigation is ongoing.

The Securities Exchange Board of India had also issued a caution on July 17, 2026, alerting regulated entities and listed companies to be aware about the modus of the crime, and to not transfer funds based on instructions received on social media.

Published – August 20, 2026 08:32 am IST