The "Parcel With Drugs" Courier Scam Explained

The parcel scam begins with the dullest call you will receive all week. A recorded voice from "FedEx" or "DHL" says a package in your name could not be delivered, or has been held by customs, and asks you to press 1. Most people who press 1 are curious rather than afraid. Forty minutes later many of them are talking to a "narcotics officer" about their own arrest. This explainer follows the call from the recording to the money, and shows where to put the phone down.

It is written for the person who got the call and for the family members of anyone who still answers unknown numbers. If someone you know is on such a call right now, end it and read the last section.

How the parcel scam call runs

The recording

"This is a call from FedEx. Your consignment has been seized by customs. Press 1 to speak to a customer executive." The courier name varies: FedEx, DHL, Blue Dart, India Post. The number may show a Mumbai or Delhi landline code. The FedEx call itself is the filter; people who do not press 1 are dropped, and the gang spends its time on those who do.

The executive

A polite person reads back a parcel number and your name, and sometimes your Aadhaar number or address, bought from a leaked database. The parcel, they say, was booked from Mumbai to Taiwan, Beijing or Bangkok in your name, and customs found inside it a quantity of MDMA or another drug, several passports, credit cards and laptops. Did you send it? Of course not. Then your identity has been misused, and the matter has been registered with the Mumbai police. They will connect you now.

The officer

The line is transferred, or you are asked to call a number, or to join a WhatsApp or Skype video call. The new voice is from the "Mumbai Crime Branch", the "Narcotics Control Bureau" or the "Cyber Cell". There is a case number, an officer's name, sometimes a uniform on video. Your Aadhaar was misused; worse, an account in your name has received money from a trafficking ring. You are a suspect. You must not disclose the investigation to anyone, including family, because the ring may have informants close to you.

The money

From here it is the digital arrest scam. You are kept on the call under "surveillance", shown fake warrants, and eventually offered a way to prove your funds are clean: transfer them to a government "verification account", from which they will be returned with a clearance certificate. Transfers are made by RTGS, UPI or by breaking fixed deposits. When the accounts are empty the officer is gone.

Why no courier or customs officer will ever call like this

Courier companies do not act as customs intermediaries by phone, and the real FedEx has itself published warnings about calls made in its name. Indian customs, when it intercepts a consignment, issues notices under the Customs Act through documented channels, and the person named has the right to respond in writing and to be represented. There is no procedure in which an officer phones a citizen, informs them of a seizure, connects them to the police and asks for money. Police, likewise, do not take statements by video call or hold suspects "online"; the law on arrest in the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita requires physical custody, a memo and a magistrate.

The gang knows all of this. The script works not because the procedure is plausible but because the sequence (courier, customs, narcotics, police) escalates fast enough that the victim never stops to ask what procedure is being followed. The Prime Minister's October 2024 Mann Ki Baat message on these calls was three words long: ruko, socho, action lo. Stop, think, act.

What the caller knows, and what that does not prove

Victims are shaken because the caller knows their Aadhaar number, their address and sometimes their recent flights. All of this leaks: from courier labels, hotel registers, loan applications, phone repair shops and breached databases, and is sold in bulk. A caller who recites your details is proving only that they bought a list. If you are genuinely worried about Aadhaar misuse, lock your biometrics and check your authentication history on the UIDAI website; both take minutes and involve no phone call.

What to do

If money has moved, call 1930 immediately with the receiving account, the amount and the time of each transfer; the complaint goes to the banks in the chain so a lien can be placed on anything still there. File on cybercrime.gov.in and write to your bank the same day, and for a large loss insist on an FIR. The sequence is on our reporting page, and what to expect after the call is in our 1930 explainer. The I4C page explains who coordinates these cases nationally.

Then expect the follow-up. Within days a "recovery agent", "cyber advocate" or "RBI officer" may call, knowing your exact loss, offering to retrieve it for a fee. Your details are on the list the gang sells. No agency contacts victims unasked and nobody can guarantee recovery. If you want the police, bank and follow-up work handled, our digital arrest response service does it for a fixed fee agreed in advance; the wider pattern is on the digital arrest page.

What the law calls this. The caller is committing cheating by personation (section 319 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023), extortion (section 308), criminal intimidation (section 351) and impersonation of a public servant (section 204), together with section 66D of the IT Act. You, the person called, have committed nothing, and no step in this process requires you to prove that. (Source: Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, and Information Technology Act, 2000, via India Code.)