Tuesday, 14 Jan, 2025
According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) Crime in India Report 2021, the total number of cases reported during the year was 52, 974. Image Source: IANS
The chargesheeting rate in the cyber-crime cases registered under the IT Act remain poor at only 36.1 percent.
A senior citizen in Bengaluru was tricked out of Rs 1.52 crore in a widespread courier scam in which con artists pose as law enforcement officers and intercept packages containing illegal goods. The scammers persuade their victims to send substantial sums of money as part of their scheme to get away with allegations of money laundering and drug trafficking.
Senior citizen Debashish Das, 66, filed a complaint with the South CEN police station stating that he was called on November 10 by someone identifying himself as Kartikeya, a worker for the FedEx shipping company. Das was informed that a police report had been filed with the Mumbai cybercrime police station in Andheri, and he was requested to make a Skype call with an Andheri police officer. A man identifying as ‘Pradeep Sawant.’ Officer of the Mumbai cybercrime branch police officer was on the other end of the call when Das downloaded Skype through the link sent to him.
Then, a person posing as a DCP instructed Das to close all of his savings and fixed deposit accounts and move the money inside to a bank account that the "DCP" had chosen. The 66-year-old man used RTGS to transfer Rs 1.52 crore from his State Bank of India account to a Punjab National Bank account because he trusted the individual posing as a DCP. The victim has claimed that after the money was delivered, the scammers who had promised to return the funds within 30 to 40 minutes after determining whether money laundering was involved did not reply.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) Crime in India Report 2021, the total number of cases reported during the year was 52, 974. This was the highest number of cases of cyber-crime reported in a year till date. In 2021, around 74,229 cases from the previous years were pending for investigation. The total number of cases for investigation in the year 2021 was 1,27,330. Around 21,229 cases out of the total cases were found to be true but couldn’t be processed further due to lack of evidence. Though the total number of cyber-crime cases in 2021 was 52,974, out of these 36,675 cases were registered under the Information Technology (IT) Act. The chargesheeting rate in the cyber-crime cases registered under the IT Act remain poor at only 36.1 percent. The highest chargesheeting rate (75.4 percent) was found in cases related to publishing or transmitting of material depicting children in sexually explicit act in electronic form.
Source: National Crime Records Bureau
The highest number of cyber-crime cases were reported from the state of Telangana. The southern state reported 10,303 cases of cyber-crimes in 2021 followed by Uttar Pradesh (8,829) and Karnataka (8,136). The total number of people arrested for cyber-crime related offences is 27,374.
Cyber fraud, commonly referred to as online fraud or internet fraud, is a crime in which a victim is defrauded of money through the internet. Fraudsters can target a person and get in touch with them via SMS, call, email, or other methods in order to obtain personal information. They can also send a malicious link to websites or apps in order to break into a computer, mobile device, or network and obtain sensitive data like bank account numbers, credit card information, social security numbers, and personal information.
The data from National Crime Records Bureau clearly shows that the cases of cybercrime in India are rising at an alarming rate. The cases of cybercrime nearly doubled from 27,248 in 2018 to 44,735 in 2019. The highest number of cybercrime case were registered in the year 2021. In 2021, 14,007 cases of cybercrime were registered in which the victim was duped of money by the fraudster. 1,624 cases of debit card and credit card frauds were also recorded separately. Around 4,823 cases of online banking fraud were also registered in 2021 along with 1,899 cases of ATM related frauds, 2,028 cases of One Time Password (OTP) were also reported.
Talking about the motive behind committing the cybercrime, fraud was the most common motive as out of the total 52,974 cases of cybercrime in 2021, 32,230 cases of fraud were registered. In case of motives, fraud was followed by sexual exploitation (4,555) and extortion (2,883). The total number of cases for investigation in 2021 stood at 73,884. In 21,229 cases of cybercrime, the accused was set free due to insufficient evidence or because he/she was untraced and lack of clues. Even though the statistics demonstrate the severity of the rising rate of cybercrime, it is troubling since they are based solely on reported incidents. Therefore, if we take into account the cases that go unreported, the actual incidents of cybercrime would be significantly higher.
Seven persons from the nation's capital and nearby Bihar were taken into custody by the Delhi police on Friday, October 20, 2023 after they uncovered a pan-Indian cyber fraud network. Eleven cell phones, over a hundred SIM cards, three computers, four cheque books, and five ATM cards were reportedly found in their possession, according to the police. According to Rohit Meena, deputy commissioner of police (DCP) (Shahdara), the arrested individuals have been determined to be directly connected to over 2,100 cybercrime complaints and 67 first information reports (FIRs) filed at various police stations in Delhi and numerous other cities throughout India.
As technology develops, cybercriminals adopt new strategies to prey on individuals and real money. Identity theft, phishing scams, credit card fraud, romance scams, investment fraud, and more are some of the frequent cybercrimes. We as responsible citizens and netizens, must learn to carefully navigate the cyber space and should remain vigilant at all the times. The Government of India has been taking a number of steps to address the cybercrimes.
Most often, people fail to report cybercrimes because they are unsure of who to contact first. To file a complaint, individuals should go directly to the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (www.cybercrime.gov.in). The National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal is a website run by the Indian government that enables victims and complainants to submit online reports of cybercrime complaints, including cyber fraud. This portal accepts complaints on cybercrimes, with a focus on those that target women and children. Victims can also dial 1930 to report and file complaint in cases of cyber frauds.
