Cybercrime is quickly increasing in India, with reports surfacing daily about victims losing large sums of money to scammers. These scammers often use tactics like threatening a "digital arrest" to instill fear and pressure individuals into transferring money. They typically operate from foreign countries to evade capture by law enforcement.
The Indian government, including Prime Minister Modi, is actively raising awareness about these scams. Recently, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) issued a warning to the public regarding international fraud calls.
They advised people to be cautious of calls from certain unfamiliar country codes, such as +77, +89, +85, +86, and +84, as these may originate from scammers. DoT and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) do not make these types of calls and have encouraged citizens to report suspicious calls through a portal called Sanchar Saathi. This helps DoT block these numbers and protect others from becoming victims.
A recent incident involved a 25-year-old student who received a call from someone pretending to be a police officer from a government agency called TRAI. The caller falsely claimed that there were complaints about the student's phone number and warned him that it would be shut down unless he obtained a special certificate from the police. Alarmed about the potential impact on his reputation, the student shared his bank information with the caller. Sadly, this resulted in a substantial loss of Rs 7.29 lakh. It was only after the call that he realized he had been deceived when he searched for "digital arrest" online.
According to a report from the Ministry of Home Affairs, scammers in India have already swindled around Rs 2,140 crore from people just in the first ten months of this year, averaging more than Rs 214 crore lost each month. These fraudsters often pretend to be officials from major Indian agencies like the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the police, and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to trick people into sending them money.
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