In a bid to curb the menace of digital arrest fraud, the central government has taken several stern measures to crackdown on those involved in this crime. The central government’s ‘Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre’ (I4C) has identified and blocked more than 3,962 Skype IDs and 83,668 WhatsApp accounts used by the scammers for Digital Arrest. Till February 28, this year, more than 7.81 lakhs SIM cards and 2,08,469 IMEIs reported by police authorities have been blocked by Government of India, officials said.
“To strengthen the mechanism to deal with cyber crimes including digital arrest scams in a comprehensive and coordinated manner, the Central Government has taken steps. I4C in collaboration with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has launched a caller tune campaign for raising awareness about cybercrime and promoting the Cyber Crime Helpline Number 1930 & ‘National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal’ (NCRP) as a part of the I4C, to enable public to report incidents pertaining to all types of cyber crimes, with special focus on cyber crimes against women and children,” said a government official.
“The Central Government and Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) have devised a system to identify and block incoming international spoofed calls displaying Indian mobile numbers that appear to be originating within India. Directions have been issued to the TSPs for blocking of such incoming international spoofed calls. Cyber crime incidents reported on the NCRP, their conversion into FIRs and subsequent action thereon are handled by the State/UT Law Enforcement Agencies concerned as per the provisions of the law,” the official said.
The ‘Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting and Management System’, under I4C, has been launched in 2021 for immediate reporting of financial frauds and to stop siphoning off funds by the fraudsters. So far, a financial amount of more than Rs 4,386 crore has been saved in more than 13.36 lakh complaints. A toll-free Helpline number ‘1930’ has been operationalized to get assistance in lodging online cyber complaints. In a Mann Ki Baat episode in October last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also spoken about the menace of ‘Digital Arrest’ scam and gave steps to tackle this cybercrime.
