Centre blocks 6.69 lakh SIM cards as many fall prey to digital arrest scam

So far, financial amount of more than Rs 3,431 crore has been saved in more than 9.94 lakh complaints, informs Bandi Sanjay

New Delhi: As many gullible people are falling prey to the digital arrest scam across the country, the government blocked more than 6.69 lakhs SIM cards and 1,32,000 International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers as reported by police authorities.

To strengthen the mechanism to deal with cyber crimes including digital arrest in a comprehensive and coordinated manner, the Central government has taken several steps, Minister of State for Home Affairs, Bandi Sanjay Kumar, said in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha.

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The Ministry of Home Affairs has set up the ‘Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre’ (I4C) 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 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 3,431 crore has been saved in more than 9.94 lakh complaints, informed the Minister. The Minister further stated that the government and telecom service providers (TSPs) have also 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,” Kumar added. Directions have also been issued to the TSPs for blocking of such incoming international spoofed calls. A Cyber Fraud Mitigation Centre (CFMC) has been established at I4C where representatives of major banks, financial intermediaries, payment aggregators, TSPs, IT Intermediaries and representatives of States/UTs law enforcement agency are working together for immediate action and seamless cooperation to tackle cybercrime.

A suspect registry of identifiers of cyber criminals has also been launched by I4C in collaboration with banks and financial institutions. The government has also introduced a new feature titled as ‘Report and Check Suspect’ that provides citizens a search option to search I4C’s repository of identifiers of cyber criminals through ‘Suspect Search.’