digital arrest fraud Taking major action, the government has blocked more than 17000 WhatsApp accounts. This action has been taken on the instructions of I4C, the cyber fraud control wing of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). Most of these WhatsApp numbers were active from Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and Thailand. People were being arrested digitally and made victims of fraud by using foreign numbers through WhatsApp.
Action on I4C instructions
Digital arrests have led to fraud worth crores of rupees in the last few months. The Cyber Fraud Coordination Center (I4C) of the Home Ministry directed action based on digital arrest complaints on the cyber crime portal. After receiving the complaint, I4C asked Meta's microblogging platform WhatsApp to take action against these accounts.
What is digital arrest?
This is a new method of cyber fraud in the internet world, where scammers first scare people by pretending to be officers of CBI, ED, Income Tax Officer or any big agency and then cheat them. For this, scammers resort to social engineering, so that people believe that the caller is really an officer. People transfer money to these scam accounts due to fear of defamation.
More than 92 thousand cases
According to the government, scammers are earning money through digital arrests. A fraud of Rs 6 crore was being done. In the last 10 months, there has been a tremendous increase in the cases of cyber fraud through digital arrest. According to the report, in the last 10 months to 1 year, fraudsters have committed fraud of Rs 2,140 crore. A total of 92,334 cases of digital arrest have been reported between January and October 2024.
Government has announced helpline number
Recently, PM Modi had also mentioned fraud through digital arrest during a public rally. The Home Ministry has issued a national helpline number 1930 for cyber fraud. Cyber fraud can be reported by calling this number.
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