New Delhi, March 25
The ‘Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre’ (I4C) set up by the Ministry of Home Affairs has identified and blocked more than 83,668 WhatsApp accounts and 3,962 Skype IDs used for Digital Arrest, the Parliament was informed on Tuesday.
Apart from this, over 7.81 lakh SIM cards and 2,08,469 IMEIs have been blocked by the Government after receiving police complaints, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Bandi Sanjay Kumar said in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha.
A Digital Arrest is a cybercrime where scammers impersonate law enforcement officials to falsely accuse individuals of crimes and extort money or personal information by threatening arrest or imprisonment.
Since 2021, he said that a Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting and Management System for reporting financial frauds and stopping siphoning off funds by fraudsters has saved more than Rs 4,386 crore in more than 13.36 lakh complaints.
Claiming that the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) does not separately compile or publish specific data regarding digital arrest scams, the MoS said the MHA has set up the I4C as an attached office to deal with all types of cyber crimes in the country, in a coordinated and comprehensive manner.
Sharing details of avenues for citizens to report digital arrests and other cyber crimes, he said the ‘National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal’ (https://cybercrime.gov.in) has been launched, as a part of the I4C, to enable the public to report incidents pertaining to all types of cyber crimes.