LUCKNOW, July 29 -- What began as the investigation into a Rs.70 lakh digital arrest fraud has uncovered an alleged international cybercrime network, with Lucknow Police claiming that a telecom point-of-sale (POS) agent secretly activated e-SIMs using customers' KYC documents and supplied them to Cambodia-based cyber fraudsters to facilitate digital arrest and other online scams.

The Cyber Crime Cell launched the probe after a Lucknow resident was allegedly kept under "digital arrest" for seven days, from July 16 to 22, by fraudsters posing as Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), Pune officials. Claiming he was involved in a money laundering case, the callers allegedly intimidated him through continuous video calls and forced him to transfer Rs.7...