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INDIANS LOST Rs 120.30 crore in “digital arrest” frauds, which was highlighted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi Sunday, in the first quarter of this year alone, government cybercrime data shows.
According to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), which monitors cybercrime at the central level through the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C), digital arrests have of late become a prevalent method of digital fraud. Many of those carrying out these frauds are based in three contiguous southeast Asian countries: Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia.
In its analysis of trends from January to April, the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) found that 46% of cyber frauds reported in this period — in which the victims cumulatively lost an estimated Rs 1,776 crore — originated in these three countries.
National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP) data show 7.4 lakh complaints were made between January 1 and April 30 this year, while 15.56 lakh complaints were received in all of 2023. A total 9.66 lakh complaints were reported in 2022, up from 4.52 lakh the previous year.
According to I4C, there are four types of scams — digital arrest, trading scam, investment scam (task based) and romance/dating scam. “We found that Indians lost Rs 120.30 crore in digital arrest, Rs 1,420.48 crore in trading scam, Rs 222.58 crore in investment scam, and Rs 13.23 crore in romance/dating scam,” Chief Executive Officer (I4C) Rajesh Kumar had said while releasing the January-April data in May.
In digital arrest, potential victims would get a call in which the caller would tell them that they had sent or were the intended recipients of a parcel containing illegal goods, drugs, fake passports, or other contraband.
In some cases, relatives or friends of the target would be told that the target had been found to be involved in a crime.
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