The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has blocked more than 1700 Skype IDs and 59,000 Whatsapp accounts used for digital arrest by cyber criminals impersonating as officers from state police, CBI, NCB, RBI and other law enforcement agencies.

Besides that, till November 15, 2024, more than 6.69 lakhs SIM cards and 1,32,000 IMEIs as reported by police authorities have been blocked by telecom authorities, Minister of State for Home Affairs, Bandi Sanjay Kumar told the Lok Sabha in a written reply to a question.

The central government and telecom service providers (TSPs) have devised a system to identify and block incoming international spoofed calls displaying Indian mobile numbers appear to be originating within India. Such international spoofed calls have been made by cyber-criminals in recent cases of fake digital arrests, FedEx scams, impersonation as government and police officials, etc, the MoS for Home Affairs stated.

Directions have been issued to the TSPs for blocking of such incoming international spoofed calls, the Minister informed parliamentarians.

Cybercrimes in the country

Ministry of Home Affairs has set up the ‘Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre’ (I4C) as an attached office to deal with all types of cybercrimes in the country, in a coordinated and comprehensive manner.

The ‘Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting and Management System’, under the I4C, was launched in 2021 for immediate reporting of financial frauds and to stop siphoning off funds by the fraudsters. So far, financial amount of more than Rs. 3431 crore has been saved in more than 9.94 lakh complaints, Kumar replied.

The ‘National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal’ (https://cybercrime.gov.in) was launched by the government, as a part of the I4C, to enable public to report incidents pertaining to all types of cyber crimes, with special focus on virtual crimes against women and children.

Cyber crime incidents reported on this portal, their conversion into FIRs and subsequent action thereon are handled by the State/UT Law Enforcement Agencies concerned as per the provisions of the law, the MHA said.