'FedEx says your parcel has drugs': The scam that trapped an Indian comedian

"Hello ma'am, I'm calling from FedEx. We've been alerted by police that a courier you sent to Iraq contains drugs."This is what a man on the other end of the phone told Ankita Shrivastav, a stand-up comedian based in Mumbai city, one afternoon in October 2024. What followed was one of the most harrowing experiences of her life, Shrivastav says, but she never spoke about it publicly until this April, when she performed a comedy sketch based on the experience.In the almost 30-minute video uploaded on her YouTube channel, Shrivastav narrates how the person on the phone asked her to make a video call and connected her with two men in police uniform who placed her under "digital arrest" until they could verify her identity and confirm that she wasn't the person who had sent the courier.For the next eight hours, the "policemen" monitored Shrivastav via a video calling app on her laptop. She wasn't allowed to switch off her camera, leave the house or meet or speak to anyone.They asked her numerous questions, including about her bank accounts and transaction history, all the while reminding her how grave the case was and how much trouble she could be in."The pressure was intense and after a while, I felt confused and psychologically exhausted. I just wanted the ordeal to end," Shrivastav told the BBC.She went on to approve transactions worth 900,000 rupees ($9,300; £6,700) at the behest of the so-called policemen, only to realise later that the entire operation was a scam and that she had lost her money."'You're educated, how did you get scammed?' - this is what anyone I spoke to about my experience told me," Shrivastav says. "And that's also a question I have repeatedly asked myself."