Nearly half of financial frauds targeting Indians are originating from the three south-east Asian countries of Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, and many web applications used to commit the frauds are written in Chinese language, thereby not ruling out the Chinese connection, Rajesh Kumar, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), said on May 22.
Mr. Kumar said in the first four months of the year, Indians had lost over ₹1,776 crore in 89,054 cases of financial crimes such as digital arrest, stock market scam, investment scam and romance or dating scam and there had been a “spurt in the organised crime from south-east Asia.” These complaints were received on national cyber crime portal — cybercrime.gov.in and 1930 helpline, and not all of them were converted into First Information Reports (FIR).
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With the effort of I4C and State police, a total of 3.25 lakh mule bank accounts, 595 apps and more than 3,000 URLs had been blocked in the past four months. Additionally, 5.3 lakh SIM cards, 80,848 IMEI numbers had been suspended since July 2023 and 3,401 WhatsApp groups had been taken down in the past two months.
He said financial crime hotspots remained active in India, but the quantum of money lost to south-east Asia origin frauds was much more.
Around 1,000 held
“Out of the total complaints on the portal, 85% complaints pertain to financial crimes, out of which 48% originate from south-east Asia. The financial crime hotspots in Jharkhand, Haryana, Rajasthan and West Bengal were still active and are expanding. Around 1,000 people have been arrested since December 2023,” Mr. Kumar said.
The government had identified “scam compounds” in these countries which resembled call centres. Fraudsters, including a large number from India, make calls to unsuspecting people in the country from Indian mobile phone numbers and dupe money through various methods.
“Out of the total financial scams originating from south-east Asia, the maximum number of complaints — 62,687 were related to investment scam. It lures people mainly through social media. The victim is told to sit at home and earn money. Generally it starts with earning money and later the victims end up losing a large amount. In 2023, we had more than 1 lakh complaints, and 10,000 FIRs were published,” Mr. Kumar said.
Mr. Kumar said that according to open-source information, China was also a victim of such scams and in one spell in the past two years, 44,000 Chinese people were brought back from the “scam compounds.”
“Many of the apps that we have seen being used are written in Chinese, therefore we cannot rule out the Chinese connection,” he said.
Protest against employers
The officer added that on May 20, many Indians working in a suspected scam compound in Sihanouk city, Cambodia protested against their employers. “Some of them join willingly and some are duped into joining these centres with the fake promise of data entry operator. They arrive on tourist visas in Thailand and due to ungoverned border and human traffickers, they end up in these compounds where they are made to work for long hours. The Indians erupted in protest as they wanted their passports back, the Andhra Pradesh police are investigating the case and three recruiting agents have been arrested,” Mr. Kumar said.
In the past four months, 360 Indians had been brought back from these compounds and 60 others were in the custody of the Indian Embassy.
“We have a list of all the people, including women, who have gone to this geography on tourist visas and have not returned for a very long time. Most are in the 21-30 age-group. We are seeking the help of the Ministry of External Affairs [MEA] to trace these people,” Mr. Kumar said.
He said the newly enacted Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which would come into effect from July 1, would put such crimes in the “organised crime” category.
“There are people who are renting out their accounts to such fraudsters, then there are a large number of mule bank accounts which are being used to deposit the money cheated by the people. For every five mule bank accounts, two are in private and three are with public sector banks. Even the payment made for advertisements on Google luring people to frauds are made from Indian accounts. Google is making money. In collaboration with the platform, we are devising a machine-based solution,” he said.
On May 16, a high-level inter-ministerial committee headed by the Special Secretary (Internal Security) has been constituted aimed at mitigating cybercrime originating from south-east Asia targeting India.
