BHOPAL: From January 1 to May 25 2022, 1,800 cyber crime cases were reported in the state capital — with the duped money amounting to Rs 7.3 crore — this is more than double the number of cases registered in 2021.
The state capital has seen an increase in cyber crime cases in 2022. Though cyber crime cases have been steadily increasing, the incidents have gone up rapidly post pandemic — over 12 cyber crime cases are reported in the city every day, with cyber criminals siphoning off Rs 5 lakh online from Bhopalis bank accounts daily.
As per data compiled by the Bhopal cyber crime branch, 1,300 complaints were directly reported to the branch between January 1 to May 25 — in which the victims were duped of around Rs 5 crore total. During the same period of 145 days, 400 cyber complainst were received on the helpline run by the cyber crime branch in which the victims were duped of Rs 2.33 crore. The rate of cases solved by the cyber crime branch remains high — with 90% closing percentage — but the recovery from cyber criminals remains and issue.
This year, between the same period, cyber crime branch succeeding in recovering only Rs 35 lakh.
During the same period, police managed to freeze Rs 15 lakh in the bank accounts of the accused through quick action. An analysis of cyber-crime complaints found that most people became victims of OTP fraud cases in which fraudsters posing themselves as officials of telecom companies or banks or any other agency lured the victims in their trap and took their details to siphon money from their bank accounts.
The issue that raises concern is that the city police stations are yet not prepared enough to crack the cyber-crime cases. Speaking on the rising cyber-crimes DCP (Crime Branch) Amit Kumar said that police have launched a campaign to make people aware of cyber-crimes. In case a person becomes a victim of cyber-crime, especially financial fraud, they should report the matter to police immediately within half an hour or else the cyber-fraudsters withdraw their money through the ATMs and when police track them the money is not recovered. People can report the matter to the cyber-crime branch helpline number – 9479990636. They can also report the cyber-crimes on the National Cyber-crime reporting portal – 1930 (Earlier 155260) round the clock.
He said that police are working on the complaints received and efforts are on to recover maximum money from the cyber-fraudsters so that it can be refunded to the victims.
