On Sunday, in his monthly radio address, Mann Ki Baat, the PM cautioned against “digital arrest fraud”, in which “fraudsters impersonate as police, CBI, narcotics, (and) at times RBI” and exert so much “psychological pressure on the victim that one gets scared.”
Cyber criminals reportedly posing as officers from the Mumbai police forced an elderly person in Pune to stay confined to his house due to his “digital arrest”. The scamsters targeted the 73-year old man ostensibly for “drug trafficking” and “money laundering”, and defrauded him of Rs 45 lakh. Disquietingly, this incident is not a one-off. There are numerous such examples where ordinary individuals have been duped of lakhs. And it’s not just the financially less educated, or those in underprivileged settings who are the victims. Reports in this paper reveal that a man in southwest Delhi was defrauded of Rs 19 lakh by scamsters posing as members of the Mumbai financial task force, and how other scamsters placed a retired university professor and an industrialist under “digital arrest”, duping them of Rs 75 lakh and Rs 7 crore respectively. The scale and scope of “digital” fraud seems to have increased in recent times. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has drawn attention to it, advising the public to be aware of the scamsters’ modus operandi.
On Sunday, in his monthly radio address, Mann Ki Baat, the PM cautioned against “digital arrest fraud”, in which “fraudsters impersonate as police, CBI, narcotics, (and) at times RBI” and exert so much “psychological pressure on the victim that one gets scared.” He noted that “people have lost lakhs of rupees”. Considering the number of such incidents that have come to light recently, the PM’s comments could not have come at a better time. Between January 1 and April 30, 7.4 lakh complaints were made as per the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal. As per the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre, there are several types of rackets — digital arrest, trading scam, investment scam and romance/dating scam. Between January-April this year, Indians lost Rs 120.3 crore in digital fraud, Rs 1,420.48 crore in trading scams, Rs 222.58 crore in investment scams and Rs 13.23 crore in romance/dating scams. According to reports, many of the perpetrators can be traced to Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia. In 2023-24, there were also 29,082 card/internet related fraud cases as per the RBI’s annual report.
As fraudsters employ methods that are increasingly sophisticated and innovative — from fake documents to fake call centres — the issue needs to be tackled at multiple levels. The PM spoke about the National Cyber Coordination Centre, which will synchronise activities among various agencies. Government needs to investigate such cases and bring the culprits to book in a swift manner. At the same time, greater awareness must be created among the public at large to help protect them against such scams.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
First uploaded on: 29-10-2024 at 04:00 IST
