Toll-free Cybercrime helpline comes in handy

Hyderabad: One of the major drawbacks of every cybercrime involving loss of cash was the uncertainty over the recovery of money.

The Rachakonda Police, however, is using the toll-free cybercrime reporting helpline 155260, introduced recently by the Ministry of Home Affairs and proving that a stitch in time actually saves money. In the last two months, the Rachakonda Police Cybercrime wing has acted swiftly to save Rs 70 lakh from falling into the hands of cyber crooks.

The Ministry of Home Affairs had made the helpline operational earlier this year along with a reporting platform intended to help prevent any financial loss due to cyber frauds. This is now serving as a bridge between the State police and banks for sharing online fraud-related information for taking real-time action.

“Using this, the money which was fraudulently transacted in online cheating cases is being prevented from reaching the hands of the fraudsters by tracking the money trail and stopping its further flow before it is withdrawn,” an official said, adding that it mostly helps when the victim reaches out to the police, using the helpline, within 24 hours of being cheated.

Officials said the Rs.70 lakh that was thus blocked from being taken out of the bank by fraudsters was returned to the victims, who had lost the money in about 50 cybercrime cases including customer care frauds, job frauds, phishing calls, gift frauds and also investment frauds.

Rachakonda Police Commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat said investigating cybercrime cases was a tough task, with recovering the money from fraudsters being a bigger challenge. Many times, though the cases were solved, the money lost could not be recovered and returned to the victims, as the fraudsters had managed to withdraw the cash from the banks.
“Though our teams have worked hard and investigated cybercrime cases apart from going to various States and nabbing the fraudsters, recovery of cash has always been quite difficult. This helpline is helping in preventing the money reaching the hands of fraudsters because once we are alerted quickly enough, we can act swiftly and block the cash,” he said.

How does the helpline work
Victims dial on the toll free number, police personnel take down details of the complainant and fraudulent transaction.

Complaint is then submitted on the Citizen Financial Cyber Frauds Reporting and Management System in ticket form and an acknowledgement is sent to the victim through SMS.

This ticket will then be escalated to banks, e-wallets, merchants concerned, depending on from where the money was siphoned off.

The bank concerned will check details in its internal system and if the defrauded money is still available, freeze it. In cases where money was transferred to another bank account, the same ticket is escalated to that bank, until the money is prevented from falling in the hands of the fraudsters.