Cyber Crime threats a challenge to the world - by Sathish Puthan Madathil, Bangalore, India.

In the recent Cyber Crimes people in the IT City of India, Bangalore had lost about 70 Million Dollars in Bangalore, India, the IT Capital of India and 04 Million USD paid to the Victims to make good the Loss as claimed by the Police.

The Cyber crime and loss sustained by the common people is a very serious Risk or threat to the public. Because of the popular use of Internet Banking, or UPI payments, Plastic Money, Phone Banking etc., the vulnerability in the transaction have increased in recent time. Many times because of the foolish or irresponsible use of these systems or lack of basic security knowledge, unfortunately helping the Cyber Criminals to sneak in to the Platforms or network of your transactions and defraud you. Phishing messages to the phones or E-mail and defrauding the public are the common frauds and Cyber-Crime reporting in the recent times.

It is reported that 18 different types of frauds had happened in Bangalore, India from January to September 2023 in this year. Let us examine what are the modus operandi and types of frauds happened and how to mitigate such risks. Common people should be educated on this, at least to identify such attempts and avoid such frauds happening to them. Police claims that they were able to recover about Rs. 28.4 Crores, and pay about Rs. 27.6 Crores, as against Cyber Crime of almost Rs. 470 Crores reported in the city in 12,615 cases as per the Police Commissioner of Bangalore. The timely reporting of such frauds to the Police is the best way to detect and mitigate the Cyber Crime frauds. The Police had published a help line number by dialing of '112' or '1930' immediately and that Police can detect and prevent by taking swift action including seizure of the suspected account and prevent the crime from happening, and could arrest the perpetrators of the crime without wasting the time. The more time you take to report about the fraud to the Police, the more difficult it will be to trace and find out the defrauded funds' destination for retrieving the funds from they are parked.

Once the Police identify where the money had gone (obviously to some bank account), they can freeze the account by giving a Notice to the Bank under Section 102 Cr PC 1973. Police under this legal provision can freeze the account, when they have reasonable cause or proof to believe that the stolen money is parked in such account with an intention entice or taken away for wrongful gain. This is the legal provision for the seizure of property under this provision including cash.

MOST COMMON TYPE OF CYBER CRIMES THIS YEAR 2023:

1.????? Online Jobs fraud : In this type fraud the fraudsters contact you and offer you part-time jobs through WhatsApp messages, give tasks to like or subscribe to web content and offer money for it. They may also ask you to click the Link sent through the WhatsApp. They will initially pay you for the small tasks completed by you. It is experienced that initially they pay small amounts for the work completed by you. Later they charge high prices from the victim for the participation in the tasks and cheat you in Lakhs of Rupees. Last 09 month people lost Rs. 204 Crores and recovery was only Rs. 7.6 Crores in about 3346 Cases of frauds in this way.2.?????

2. Debit / Credit Card fraud : Fraudsters contact victims impersonating themselves as the Bank officials, collect the bank / card details, OTPs, and siphon off or transfer money from our accounts. They also send SMS and ask the victims to update the details like PIN or Password etc. information through some Link sent by them. The fraudsters also tamper with automated payment data to siphon off money. In this fraud according to Bangalore Police in around 3102 cases reported, Rs. 60.8 Crores lost, however Police was able to recover and pay Rs. 3.5 Crores back to the customers.

3.????? Business Opportunity Fraud: Fraudsters contacts the victims as investment advisors, or employees of trading companies. On the pretext of facilitating investments with high returns, they lure or make the victims transfer huge sums of money cheat them. They also offer loans to run the business and collect money citing various fees, and procedures. As per the Bangalore Police crime data, in about 1133 cases, victim lost about Rs. 60.5 Crores, but Police were able to recover about Rs. 11.8 Crores.

4.????? Gifts, I Phones, Loan Fraud : Fraudsters befriend random people on social media and after a few days of texting, offer gifts. Then they pose as executives of companies offering gifts like I Phones for shopping, or claim to be prospective buyers of valuables advertised for sale online. They also offer quick loans without any documents. The victims are made to pay various fees. According to the Police out of 1132 cases reported, victims lost about Rs. 22.4 Crores, however recovery was to the extent of Rs. 97.3 Lakhs.

5.????? Other miscellaneous frauds : In this case the fraudsters pose as courier company staff, Police / RBI / other department officers and extort victims after accusing them of indulging or doing illegal activities like sending / receiving drugs, smuggling, or receiving stolen property, or trying to molest women etc. Other methods used is by hacking your social media like Face Book, they create parallel account and then ask your friends for money for emergency. They also call in guise of acquaintances and borrow money citing some emergency like hospital or loss of valet etc.

6.????? Bogus accident scene fraud : The victims of decent looking driving the car in the busy road will be surrounded or stopped by boys from certain groups or community or an area where certain group or community of people are dwelling. They threaten the victims telling that their car or vehicle hit on their vehicle and also remove the key of the car in this confusion. They will also create a scene of accident. Then they demand money threatening that they will file case against him for hitting on their vehicle or alleging that the car ran over their legs or hit on their body etc. They then will extort money from the victims within a short time. The victim thinking that better to go away from that area dominated by certain group or community to avoid physical attack also pay what ever he has. They some time remove some property from the victim's car like purse, or Mobile Phone or Laptop which is kept in the back seat and then vanish from the scene. Many time these type of cases will never been reported and taking advantage of this they also repeat this fraud called Bogus Accident Fraud. In some cases they also compel the victim in isolated place to do google pay or Paytm payment etc. from his phone.?

What Bangalore Police reportedly doing to prevent this?Lot of proactive action has been done by the Commissioner of Police of the recent of Bangalore to stop such crimes. They had taken steps like creating awareness among public, quick and timely response by the Police by reacting to the complaints from victims coming to the help number, Special Task Force for taking immediate action to such crimes, quick registration of the FIRs in the Police Stations without any delay and immediate ground actions. According to the Commissioner of Police, Bangalore statement given to the media, he proposed for the dedicated specially trained Police team, which will be trained for the capacity building in investigating the Cyber Crimes reported in the City. Provision for using the advanced tools for investigation and evidence collection, giving legal provision for completing the case within 60 to 90 days and if any failure the I.O. must give an explanation for the reason for delay are indeed proactive actions indeed from the Bangalore City Police. But according to this author there should considerable amount of support and timely reporting required from the part of the victims or public to help the Police in detecting and preventing such crimes.?

Conclusion:

The emerging trend is that the fraudsters are highly innovative and using new technology and modus operandi in such Cyber Crimes. Every time they use different and unique methods in approaching the victims, using new technology to siphon the money from them. The only way is to educate the people and also alert them through social media or WhatsApp groups or any other way that people identify such efforts and not to be carried away by the efforts of perpetrators of these crimes. People should not 'trigger happy' that what ever they get in the messages they click on that. Share each other information on such modus operandi and caution each other about such attempts when noticed by one being a valuable citizen of this country. Please don't think that it is the job of only Police to protect you from Cyber-crimes, remember that you can contribute a lot in helping them in helping you.

About the Author of this Article:

The author of this article Mr. Sathish Puthan Madathil is an experienced Police Officer who have more than 36 years of experience in the national and international policing. He is presently working as the Investigation Expert of the Premier Investigating Agency of India of Ministry of Home Affairs, Govt. of India.?He also worked with the agencies like CBI, CAPF, United Nations Police and presently working in the Counter Terrorism Investigation Agency of India under the Ministry of Home Affairs, Govt. of India as Investigation Expert. He is also an expert in the Investigation and Legal Expert related to the Interpol and Foreign Investigation domain.