Digital Arrest: New weapon of cyber fraud, 120 crores stolen in 4 months

Prabha October 28,2024

Digital arrest is a new challenge of cybercrime. Government data shows that Indians lost Rs 120.30 crore in “digital arrest” fraud from January to April this year. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also released a video on this on Sunday. Many of the perpetrators of this fraud are in three adjacent South-East Asian countries: Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) monitors cybercrime at the central level through the Indian Cyber ​​Crime Coordination Center (I4C). It said that digital arrest has recently become a common method of digital fraud.

In a data analysis from January to April, the Indian Cyber ​​Crime Coordination Center (I4C) found that 46% of the cyber frauds reported in this period, in which victims lost an estimated Rs 1,776 crore in total, were operated from these three countries (Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia).

National Cyber ​​Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP) data shows that 7.4 lakh complaints were received between January 1 and April 30 this year, while 15.56 lakh complaints were received in the whole of 2023. A total of 9.66 lakh complaints were registered 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 (work based) and romance/dating scam. Chief Executive Officer (I4C) Rajesh Kumar said that “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.” This data is from January to April. This data was collected in May.

Method of digital arrest

You will suddenly receive a phone call to digitally arrest you. In which the caller will tell that you had sent illegal goods, drugs, fake passports or other banned parcels or you have received it, that is, you have received it. Sometimes, to target you, this phone call can also go to your relatives or friends, who will be told that your friend or your relative is involved in such a crime. As soon as you get this information from a friend or relative, you will panic. Then suddenly you will get a call from the same place. The same thing will be repeated to you and you will be told that till now only your friend or relative has information about it. In this way you can be trapped.

Once the target is set, the criminal will contact you through Skype or any other video calling system. They will introduce themselves as a legal officer, police or an officer of an investigating agency. Often they will be seen in government uniform. In the video call, you will be seen sitting in a place like a police station or government office. So that you believe them. They will ask you for money to “compromise” or “close the matter”. But the demand for money will only happen when you are completely scared and pleading with them.

After analysing the data of states and union territories and some open-source information, I4C found that most of the phone calls are being made from Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia. Or from there, it is being done sitting in India through VPN.

Biggest concern

Rajesh Kumar of I4C said, “The perpetrators of such frauds are sitting in these countries. But they also involve Indians in such crimes by luring them with fake employment opportunities. Its operators also try to recruit Indian people through social media.” That is, the mastermind of cyber fraud may be a foreigner but he is using unemployed Indians.

PM Modi is also worried

PM Modi expressed concern over this in his Mann Ki Baat program on Sunday. He said that the countrymen need to be very careful about the scams happening in the name of digital arrest. I am telling you these three steps of digital security, which you must remember.

The only way to protect yourself from cyber crime is to be alert. There is no need to panic on receiving any phone call and calling you a criminal. Because when you have not committed any crime then what is the need to be afraid. If you receive a courier which is not in your name or the name of any member of your family then there is no need to accept it. If a courier comes to you then before accepting it, check from where it has been sent. If you have not ordered anything then why should you accept a courier. If anything like this happens, first of all tell your family and friends. You can get the right advice.