Gurugram: Haryana Director General of Police (DGP) Shatrujeet Kapur issued an advisory earlier this week to petrol pump operators: He asked them to exercise caution as investigations into the alleged duping of a woman by cybercriminals from Nuh had revealed that the miscreants had encashed the money — stolen digitally — through a petrol pump operator who was paid a cut.
Addressing a press conference Friday, Kapur said cybercrime had become a major issue across the country, and in Haryana as well.
“On average, Haryana Police have been receiving 1,000 to 1,200 complaints of cybercrimes in a day, in which 200 to 250 people fall prey to cyber frauds,” he said.
Cybercrime has registered a sharp rise in Haryana, with government figures suggesting the number of incidents reported annually has grown 10 times since 2019.
In 2023, 1,08,055 cybercrime incidents (FIRs & complaints registered) were reported in Haryana (until 8 December), compared to 9,900 in 2019, 20,440 in 2020, 29,810 in 2021 and 66,784 in 2022, according to a reply by state Home Minister Anil Vij during the assembly’s winter session last month.
Police say ‘social engineering’ — talking a target into divulging certain information or committing certain actions — has been the prime modus operandi in cybercrimes reported in Haryana, and not hacking or tech like malware.
Recent cons have involved scamsters pretending to be police or customs officials lobbing false allegations at victims, as well as the classic tactic of striking a friendship with vulnerable targets.
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Cases that made headlines
In October this year, a 23-year-old woman in Faridabad allegedly received a call from a man who introduced himself as a customs official from Lucknow.
The woman was told that a parcel containing a large number of passports and other documents was being sent to Cambodia using her Aadhaar number, and she was now under the scanner for allegedly facilitating human trafficking.
She was advised to register an FIR, with the man telling her she would otherwise have to come to Lucknow to appear before the customs authorities.
Before she could react, however, she received another call on Skype — a video-calling app — and some uniformed men on the other side told her that she had been identified as an associate of a bank official accused of human trafficking.
According to the Faridabad resident’s complaint, a man in a police officer’s uniform who claimed to be from the CBI told her she had been accused of duping parents of Rs 3.8 crore on the promise of sending their children abroad.
However, the men also offered a way out: The woman claims she was told to pay Rs 15 lakh to settle the case. When she expressed her inability to pay the sum, the “officer” allegedly told her he was “putting her on digital arrest” and told her not to log off Skype. The woman eventually ended up transferring Rs 2.5 lakh to a bank account on the scamsters’ instructions.
She filed a police complaint on 1 November.
In Gurugram, meanwhile, a 61-year-old woman was allegedly duped of Rs 2 crore after she struck an online friendship with a man who introduced himself as a British Airways pilot.
He had approached her on social media in December 2022.
On 5 December, the woman claimed, the man sought her address and told her that he had sent her a parcel containing several gift items, including an iPhone, artificial jewellery, a watch, accessories and cash.
However, not only did the man allegedly ask her to pay Rs 35,000 for the package, the woman also said she had received a call from a person claiming to be a customs official who told her to pay Rs 1 lakh as fine for the parcel.
When she paid Rs 95,000 — allegedly assured by the “pilot” that the money would be returned — she was told to pay another Rs 2 lakh “for a certificate required for doing currency exchange from USD to INR”.
By the time the scam came to light in April 2023, she had allegedly coughed up Rs 2 crore, for which she also sold a plot.
The alleged fraud was exposed when her son got an SMS alert after she transferred money from a joint account she holds with him, and he asked her about the transaction.
The Haryana DGP’s advisory to petrol pump operators came after a Panchkula woman approached police on 30 December alleging that Rs 50,000 had been transferred out of her account by cybercriminals who approached her in the guise of insurance officials.
The victim, according to police, was informed by the perpetrators that her insurance policy had matured, and was instructed to facilitate the transfer of the money to her account.
However, upon following the instructions given to her, she found that Rs 50,000 was withdrawn from her account, police said.
Police subsequently discovered that this money was encashed at a petrol pump in Nuh district, where the operator was charging a 3-5 percent commission to pay cash against digital transactions.
Digital evidence supporting the woman’s claims has been seized from the suspects, the DGP said Tuesday.
Crackdown and awareness
At his press conference last week, Kapur said Haryana Police were able to stall the transfer of money in 29 percent of cybercrime cases in November 2023, as compared to 10 percent in January.
In cases where the matter was reported within 4 to 5 hours, the percentage was 70 percent, he added, saying timely action had saved as much as Rs 74 crore in 2023.
Talking to ThePrint Wednesday, Additional Director General of Police (Cybercrime) O.P. Singh said Haryana Police had been able to stall transactions to the tune of Rs 76.85 crore in 2023, by acting on complaints received on the cybercrime helpline (1930).
Through the year, he added, police had received 1.15 lakh complaints of cybercrime, registered 2,599 cases, and arrested 1,903 suspected cybercriminals.
As many as 4.96 lakh mobile phone numbers from the Mewat region had been blocked, he said, adding that an additional 62,242 numbers had been barred through the central government’s National Cybercrime Reporting Portal.
The state police, he said, is partnering with telecom major Airtel to explore AI solutions for the proactive blocking of fraudsters’ mobile numbers.
As part of their crackdown, he added, police had also blocked 1.4 lakh bank accounts allegedly associated with cybercriminals.
Talking about cybercrime awareness initiatives, he said Haryana Police “have 854 volunteers for enhancing community participation in combating cybercrimes”, and conducted 3,971 public relations programmes in 2023 that reached “an audience of over 21 lakh people”.
Police, he added, had also “disseminated 5,137 news reports, 13,011 social media messages, achieving 7.65 lakh social engagements”, and reached “3.92 lakh people through WhatsApp”.
(Edited by Sunanda Ranjan)