Pune : Woman arrested in cyber scam escapes police custody during train journey

A whale phishing scam took place recently where a real estate company was scammed of Rs. 4 crore. The Pune Police had arrested a 24-year-old suspect identified as Sophia Siddique Alias Sania Alias Gudia. She was arrested from Faridabad, Haryana, by the Pune Police on February 17th. When she was being brought back to Pune by the Duronto Express train, she escaped from the custody of the police.

She was the key suspect in the whale phishing crimes taking place around her and escaped from Ratlam Station. 

Phishing crime is also known as CEO fraud. It targets individuals with a high profile in an organisation who have access to sensitive information or the finances of the organisation. The fraudsters pose as the CEO of the company and manipulate the victims into revealing confidential data or approving transactions worth lakhs or crores. One such incident took place with the Serum Institute of India, which lost Rs 1 crore in this scam.

The team searched for her through CCTV, where she was last seen in Kota. A joint probe and search were launched by the railway police of Kota, Rajasthan, where they realised that the suspect had fled from the hands of Pune Police.

A senior police officer in Pune said, “Our information suggests that the suspect gave the police team a slip sometime around 4:00 am on Sunday. When the team realised that she was gone, The police team reported the incident to the Government Railway Police (GRP) unit in Kota. An offence was registered, and a joint search has been launched by the GRP team and our team.”

Additionally, half a dozen whale phishing crimes have been reported since July 2023 in Pune, through which organizations have lost a huge amount of revenue.