Mumbai Cybercrime: Two Arrested in ₹48.60 Lakh Boss Scam Targeting Accountant

The ‘Boss Scam’, also known as CEO impersonation fraud, involves fraudsters impersonating senior company officials such as CEOs or directors and persuading employees to transfer large amounts of money from corporate accounts. According to an advisory issued by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre on June 22, 2026, cybercriminals target high-ranking officials and executives by delivering malicious archives through 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, allowing 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 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 to August 25.

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

According to the police, apart from two cases in Mumbai, one case each in Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu is linked to the two accused and registered on the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal.

Bajrang Balsode, DCP, South Cybercrime, said the complainant, an accountant at a pipe company in Mumbai, was contacted by an unknown number on WhatsApp. The caller claimed to be the company’s CEO.

“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, police investigated the fake CEO’s number and allegedly traced its SIM to the source in Rukundi Pur, Bihar. Police arrested Aamir Chand Mohammad Khan, a point of sale Airtel SIM vendor, on August 14, 2026.

The investigation subsequently led to the arrest of his accomplice, Suraj Kumar Pradeep Kumar Saw, also known as Vishal, from near Jamtara in Jharkhand on August 16, 2026, Assistant Police Inspector Ramdas Gopal said.

According to Mr. Gopal, the SIM card used to defraud the accountant belonged to an Army soldier who had returned home to Bihar while on a break from 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.

Police said Khan had also illegally activated SIM cards belonging to other Bihar residents using misused documents and e-KYC. He allegedly sold eight SIM cards to co-accused Vishal for ₹6,000 through UPI.

Police have allegedly seized 161 SIM cards, a megaphone and a POCO phone containing the ‘Airtel Mitra’ app used to activate SIM cards from the accused. The arrests and the wider investigation have linked the alleged ₹48.60 lakh fraud to a broader network of similar Boss/CEO impersonation cases across multiple states.