The Delhi Police has arrested a 34-year-old woman for allegedly siphoning off over Rs two lakh from her retired father's pension account to get back her gold jewelry mortgaged with a finance company against a loan, police said on Saturday.

While transferring money from her father's account using mobile banking between last November and March this year, the woman used to delete one time passwords and debit messages from his phone to avoid suspicion, police said.

According to Sagar Singh Kalsi, the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), North district, a complaint from 69-year-old man, a resident of Sant Nagar in Delhi, that he is a retired pensioner from a reputed electricity company and Rs 2.3 lakhs were debited from his bank’s pension account without his knowledge between November, 2021 to March, 2022.

“Further, the complainant alleged that neither he received any OTP for the transactions nor received any debit message from the bank. The complainant suspected of being victimised of some cyber crime. Subsequently, a case under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) was registered and investigation was taken up,” said the DCP.

“During investigation, analysis of wallets and bank accounts was made by the police team which found that money was first transferred to Paytm wallets and was then further transferred in two bank accounts,” said the DCP.

“The first bank account was found registered to the victim's son-in-law whereas the other bank account was of his daughter. The complainant’s daughter was apprehended, who confessed that she transferred the cheated money from her retired father’s bank account after adding his ATM Card Number in her Paytm and used OTP received on her father’s mobile number for transaction. She further disclosed that she deleted OTP messages and debit messages to avoid suspicion,” said the DCP. “She further disclosed that initially she transferred a low amount from her father’s pension bank account to her online wallet. When nothing wrong was suspected by her father, she started transferring money again and transferred a total of Rs 2.03 lakhs in a few months,” said the DCP.

“She used the money to release the gold deposited against a loan from a finance company. Her family is financially weak and her husband is a labour class,” said police.