In the lockdown period between April to July, the Delhi police received over 4,500 cybercrime complaints, said a senior police officer on Thursday.
The officer added that there were 62% of the total complaints lodged in 2020 were related to online financial fraud.
“Among the complaints of various cybercrimes received, the predominant ones are of online financial fraud, accounting for around 62% of the total. Over 24% of the complaints related to social media, primarily online harassment, and the rest 14% were that of hacking, identity theft, data theft,” the statement said.
The police keep emphasising through awareness posters, radio jingles, videos that one should not share their personal information or credentials with unknown people out of some temptation or for monetary benefits.
Cyber criminals are on a rise with new ways to fool people. A perusal of the complaints received by Delhi Police reveals that cases of extortion by morphing videos of people, especially related to sexual conduct, have increased manifold.
Reimbursement of fake reward points or cashbacks, SOS messages through fake Facebook accounts, customer care number manipulation through search-engine optimisation resulting in frauds in the guise of refund of airline tickets and other online payments are other modus operandi that criminals have adopted to dupe people, it said.
Several cases were registered in matters related to tech-support, immigration and IRS call centre scams and 125 persons were arrested. These fake call centres were being used to cheat foreign nationals.
The Delhi Police has busted five such fake call centres that were operating at a big level from Moti Nagar, Rajouri Garden and Peeragarhi and arrested 125 persons, including the owners or managers who were operating the call centres, it stated.
The Cyber Crime Unit (CyPAD) of Delhi Police has been taking stringent action against cyber criminals and arrested more than 214 cyber offenders, the statement said.
In last 10 days, a total of five illegal call centres have been busted.
Over 278 profiles containing objectionable content were blocked. This includes Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube accounts. The maximum number of accounts — 140 that were blocked — were of Twitter, it added.
