The Ministry of Home Affairs reported that more than 7.81 lakh SIM cards and 2,08,469 IMEI numbers were blocked by the Government of India as of February-end, following police reports in connection with cyber crimes, such as the highly prevalent “digital arrest” scams.
In these scams, the fraudsters pose as members of law enforcement and military, and use video calls to extort money from unsuspecting victims in the guise of them being sentenced to “digital arrest”.
To combat cybercrime, the ministry set up the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, or I4C, along with launching comprehensive awareness programmes on digital arrest scams.
The I4C also identified and blocked over 3,962 Skype IDs and 83,668 WhatsApp accounts used for digital arrest scams, said the ministry.
Through the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP) set up under the I4C, the public can report incidents related to online fraud and cyber crimes.
The I4C, in collaboration with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) even launched a caller-tune campaign to raise awareness about cybercrime and to promote the Cyber Crime Helpline Number 1930 and the NCRP.
“The Central Government has published a Press Release on Alert against incidents of ‘Blackmail’ and ‘Digital Arrest’ by Cyber Criminals Impersonating State/UT Police, NCB, CBI, RBI and other Law Enforcement Agencies,” added the ministry.
Moreover, the Centre devised a system to identify and block incoming fraudulent calls from international outlets masking them as Indian numbers. “Directions have been issued to the TSPs (Telecom Service Providers) for blocking of such incoming international spoofed calls,” said the ministry.
However, Bandi Sanjay Kumar, Minister of State at the Ministry of Home Affairs, in a recent written statement to the Rajya Sabha, stated, “Police and public order are state subjects as per the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution of India. The States/UTs are primarily responsible for the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of crimes including cybercrime and digital arrest scams through their Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs).”
“The Central Government supplements the initiatives of the States/UTs through advisories and financial assistance under various schemes for capacity building of their LEAs,” added Kumar.
