Indian-American teenage student sexually assaulted, strangled to death in Chicago
Washington, Nov 26: A 19-year-old Indian-American student was sexually assaulted and then strangulated to death in Chicago, police said about a brutal murder that has shocked the community in the US.
Ruth George, originally hailing from Hyderabad and an honours student at the University of Illinois, was found dead in the back seat of a family-owned vehicle in a campus garage on Saturday.
The assailant, Donald Thurman, 26, was arrested Sunday from a Chicago metro station. He is not associated with the university. On Monday, he was formally charged with first-degree murder and aggravated sexual assault for killing George.
The medical examiner ruled George's death a homicide by strangulation.
According to the university, George was a sophomore and kinesiology major.
The university said in a statement George's family reported to the University Police on Saturday that she had not been heard from since Friday evening.
Her phone was pinged to the Halsted Street Parking Garage, and police and family members responded to find George unresponsive in the back seat of a vehicle owned by her family.
Police then requested assistance from the FBI Evidence Response Team to assist in the processing of the crime scene and to complete forensics on the vehicle.
According to the university, police retrieved video footage from existing university cameras of the offender who was seen walking behind George on Saturday.
She entered the garage on foot at approximately 1:35 a.m., followed by the offender. The offender is seen again on video footage at 2:10 a.m. walking on Halsted Street.
Police then reviewed video footage from the Chicago Transit Authority, the Chicago POD cameras, and its internal system to determine travel patterns for the offender.
Based on the observations, police detectives decided to watch the Blue line station during the hours that the offender had previously travelled on the Blue line.
Thurman, who has a criminal history, was arrested on Sunday near the Blue line train station at Halsted and Harrison streets. He was taken into custody and subsequently gave a full confession to this horrific crime.
"All of us are devastated by the loss of Ruth George, a member of our Honours College and a talented kinesiology student with dreams and aspirations to become a health professional and help others. Our thoughts, our hearts, and our condolences are with her family and friends during this trying period, University Chancellor Michael D Amiridis said in a statement.
According to local ABC 7 news, yellow ribbons are hung around campus in memory of George, who was nicknamed "Baby Colour."
"The ribbon is, the colour is her favourite colour," Cynthia Martinez, UIC student, was quoted as saying. "They just asked if we could tie them somewhere on campus, in her memory."
Her former gymnastics team coach said in a statement to ABC7 that George was a "sweet girl" with the "brightest smile" who will be dearly missed.
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The new-age dacoity: Cyber fraudsters rob Delhi of Rs 1,250 crore in one year
New Delhi (PTI): A few lakh rupees here, a few crores there, and once as much as Rs 23 crore. With relentless regularity, cyber fraudsters have stolen a cumulative Rs 1,250 crore from unsuspecting victims in Delhi region alone in the last one year, officials said Monday.
The nationwide figure is believed to be around Rs 20,000 crore or as much as the budget of a small state.
The new-age dacoity once again came to the forefront of public consciousness last week with a Rs 14.85 crore fraud perpetrated on a senior citizen couple in Greater Kailash colony of New Delhi, leaving them nearly penniless and the community in shock at how easily the cyber thieves are able to manipulate their victims.
Repeated public service messaging by authorities has not deterred or reduced the crime. In 2024, police said the criminals -- almost always based in Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos and working mostly on the behest of Chinese handlers -- collectively stole Rs 1,100 crore in Delhi.
The figure for 2025 jumped to about Rs 1,250 crore, a senior police officer said. The only silver lining is that the recovery rate too jumped from 10 per cent in 2024 to 24 per cent in 2025.
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That is of little consolation for 81-year-old Om Taneja and his wife Indira, 77, who were conned over a 16-day period through the now-familiar stratagem -- digital arrest, a non-existent tool in the law that the criminals have used with impunity over the last three to four years when the fraud was first started being observed.
"We have lost all of our life's savings now. The cyber fraudsters repeatedly threatened us with arrest and serious consequences," Om Taneja told PTI.
He said his wife was approached on WhatsApp by a caller who claimed to be from the telecom department. Using a tried-and-tested spiel that her phone was being used for illegal activities, the caller and his associates sucked the couple into a deepening web of deceit built on fear and their willingness to abide by the law.
While placed under "digital arrest" from December 24 to January 9, they gave away their entire life savings in several chunks of about Rs 2 crore, drawn from their savings accounts and by liquidating their mutual funds.
In the wake of the case, another senior police officer, explaining the modus operandi of such scammers, told PTI that digital arrest cases, along with investment frauds, have emerged as two of the most common ways in which people are losing their hard-earned money.
Investigators said most of these fraudsters operate out of Southeast Asian countries such as Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, where large-scale “scam compounds” run by Chinese handlers target victims across the world.
From these locations, the accused use illegal SIM box installations that allow international calls to be masked as local Indian numbers by bypassing telecom networks.
"The calls are actually routed from abroad but are made to appear as domestic calls using illegal SIM box devices, which helps the accused evade detection while creating fear and urgency among victims," the officer said.
The police said mule bank accounts continue to pose a major challenge, as they create multilayered money trails that are difficult to trace. Fraudsters based in India often assist overseas syndicates by providing mule accounts and SIM cards to launder stolen funds.
These accounts are typically opened by people from economically weaker sections, who hand them over to fraudsters in return for a commission.
To tackle the rising menace of cybercrime, the police said they have been regularly conducting cyber awareness programmes across multiple platforms, with a special focus on vulnerable sections such as senior citizens.
Recently, they launched a two-phase awareness drive titled ‘Santa ki Seekh’, under which citizens were educated about the risks of scanning unknown links after being prompted through QR codes.
Officials said coordination meetings are also being held regularly with bank officials to ensure greater due diligence and sensitisation of frontline staff.
In this connection, two bank employees were recently arrested for allegedly facilitating a cyber fraud by helping a gang open a fake current account using forged documents, which was used to divert and siphon off the proceeds of the crime.
Officials reiterated their appeal to citizens to immediately report cyber fraud on the national helpline number 1930, noting that early reporting significantly improves the chances of putting fraudulent transactions on hold and recovering the money.
Another officer said that people should report a cybercrime as soon as it happens, which increases the chances of getting the money back, as the transaction can be blocked within 24 hours.
Major Vineet Kumar, Founder and Global President of CyberPeace, told PTI that a local court in West Bengal had pronounced life imprisonment for nine individuals last year in the country's first conviction in a digital arrest cyber fraud case.
"We must accept the truth. India has had poor conviction rates for cybercrime for a long time. A majority of the cybercrimes are still not reported. Survivors may become discouraged and wonder, 'What's the point of reporting?' However, I constantly remind people that low conviction today does not equate to a lack of justice tomorrow.
"Digital evidence management, cyber forensics, and specialised cyber police units are all developing quickly. Every report makes the system stronger," he said.
