After performing his primary duty as a responsible citizen of the country—casting his vote—Kumar, a senior citizen from Visakhapatnam of Andhra Pradesh, who recently retired from a multi-national company, reaches home on the sunny afternoon of May 13 this year. Exhausted from standing in the voter queue line under the hot sun, he sits on his sofa and takes out his mobile phone to find two missed calls. Unsuspecting, Kumar dials back the missed call, and his life has never been the same.
A call from unknown number
A man answered the call, introduced himself as an agent from a courier company, and told Kumar that the courier he had sent to his son studying in the U.S.A. a month ago was held at the Mumbai Airport. “Your courier was found to contain narcotic substances and fake passports. The Mumbai Andheri East police will speak to you shortly,” the man said.
Dumbfounded, Kumar told the ‘agent’ that he had only sent his son’s academic certificates to a U.S. university where he was about to join. Even as Kumar struggled to grasp the situation, the man on the other end of the call read out his Aadhaar number and said the police would talk to him about the narcotics. Kumar, who had lived in Mumbai for some time, knew that the Mumbai Airport came under Andheri East police station limits and didn’t doubt the ‘agent’.
In a short while, to add to his anxiety, Kumar received another call from a person who introduced himself as an Inspector Range officer from Andheri, Mumbai. He told Kumar that a police FIR would be registered against him. Also, he warned Kumar against seeking anyone’s help, including that of his family members, saying that it would lead to more trouble and possible detention of Kumar’s family members. “Though I pleaded with him that I was not involved, he said that since the courier was in my name, I had to face the interrogation by a senior rank officer,” Kumar tells The Hindu.
Kumar was asked to join a Skype call. He did as told but asked the ‘officer’ when the police started conducting interrogations online. He was once again convinced when the fake officer told him that they started online interrogations after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“For every hour, they kept checking on me, saw if I was still on the Skype call. I was asked not to talk to anyone or go out. It was a sleepless night. My wife was also in a panic after coming to know about the courier. I informed her that I would be just complaining and everything was going to be alright,” Kumar said.
The following day, at 8 a.m., he received a call in which Kumar was informed that his case would be forwarded to a Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP)-rank officer, whose appointment was fixed at 9.45 a.m. Kumar had another reason to be convinced since the DCP’s name matched that on the internet.
“First, they showed the ID of the police officer, which is fake. Then, the mobile on which the Skype call was going on was taken into the office of the DCP. I could not see the face of the DCP clearly, as it was blurred, and he also covered his head with a cap. The DCP started to enquire about the case in detail in fluent English,” Kumar recalls.
“Initially, the fake DCP spoke as if there was nothing he could do to help me since the case was related to narcotics. But then, his tone changed. He called his subordinate and instructed him to check my Aadhaar number and report in five minutes. After five minutes, the subordinate arrived and told him that I was involved in money laundering cases. This sent chills down my spine,” says Kumar
Kumar recalls that the fake DCP knew his complete travel history during the year 2023 and questioned him on the purpose of those trips. Gradually, the DCP broached the topic of the ₹92 lakh saving in my bank account. “I received the amount after my retirement, only a few months ago. I wanted to use the money for my son’s studies abroad,” Kumar says.
Digital duping
The fake DCP then sent a letter to my mail, which looked like it had been sent from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The letter said that I was to transfer 97% of my savings to a bank account related to the RBI and that the money would be returned once the officials were convinced I was not involved in any money laundering. I was threatened that if I didn’t make a quick decision, my son’s future would be in jeopardy. Fearing even to imagine that, I rushed to the bank and dropped a cheque of ₹85 lakh to the said account, recollects Kumar.
The 60-year-old man only realised the next day that cyber crooks had looted his life savings when all the mobile numbers he had contacted the day before became unreachable.
“They (cybercriminals) keep you occupied and do not give you much time to think between the calls. They send arrest warrants, fake FIRs and even fake RBI letters with the National Emblem on it. They give you no reason to suspect. It all felt utterly real to me”A cybercrime victimVisakhapatnam resident
“They keep you occupied and do not give you much time to think between the calls. They send arrest warrants, fake FIRs and even a fake RBI letter with the National Emblem. They give you no reason to suspect. It all felt utterly real to me,” says the dejected old man worried about his son’s future abroad.
Meanwhile, the cybercrime police of Visakhapatnam are boggled at the ever-growing number of digital crimes.
Around 50 cases of courier scams, upto ₹150 crore siphoned from victims who include doctors, professors, IT employees and businessman among, insignificant recoveries or arrests, and not a single kingpin identified — these cybercrime statistics of the city in 2024 have been giving the police here sleepless nights.
Complex scheming, careful execution
The intricate scheming, psychological manipulation, and careful execution of these digital crimes that target no specific group but anyone with a mobile phone, leave little clues for the police to probe, they say.
“Gone are those days when one-time password (OTP) frauds, credit card bill frauds, job frauds, and phishing were reported. As people became aware of those, the cyber fraudsters are using innovative methods and turned hi-tech,” says G. Bhavani Prasada Rao, Inspector of Cyber Crime, Visakhapatnam, the City of Destiny.
At present, there are two types of cyber fraud. In one category comes the stock market frauds, task games, honeytraps, and cryptocurrency, where the victims are lured, or their greed becomes a major problem. In the other category come cases of money laundering, courier scams, and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) scams, where the fraudsters threaten the victim, saying they were involved in a huge scam. In some cases, the victims are threatened that they were found having links with terrorist groups and that they were found making transactions for the purchase of illegal arms, Mr. Prasad Rao explains.
“The fraudsters collect as much information about a person as possible using open source intelligence on the internet and use it to corner, convince and extort money from the victim. In most of these cases, the police end up at mule accounts, which were supplied by some people to the kingpins for money,” he said.
Mule accounts are bank accounts used by cyber criminals provided to them by people with or without criminal intentions. In most cases, the mule account holders are found to receive between ₹1 lakh and ₹1 crore per transaction, an illegal arrangement.
A few months ago, Ramakrishna and his wife rushed to the Cybercrime Police Station in Visakhapatnam and lodged a complaint that they have lost ₹54,000 to cyber fraudsters.
“We received a call from a stranger who informed us that he was calling from Special Branch Police, Hyderabad. He said that our son would be arrested immediately as he was involved in a smuggling case. We told them that he was a law-abiding Engineering student and was not involved in any such activities. But they, in turn, read out all the details of my son’s Aadhaar card, the name of the college he was studying, etc. We were shocked,” said Ramakrishna.
“Immediately, we called our son, but he did not answer. We panicked and sent the money to the stranger’s account. Minutes later, our son called back and said he did not lift the call as he was driving. We realised that we were cheated,” he says.
Pawn and prey
A more grim fact regarding these cybercrimes is that the frauds are executed by ‘cyber slaves’ who hail from Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and other States in India. Mr. Prasada Rao says the unemployed youth from here are cheated with fake job offers and trapped and forced to work as cybercrime criminals abroad.
Most of these frauds are sourced in countries like Cambodia, Myanmar, Taiwan, Laos, etc. Till now, Visakhapatnam police have rescued 85 people who were forced into cyber slavery in other countries.
Manoj was one such youth recently rescued by the city police from Myanmar. He had been trapped by fraudsters in the name of work in a Bangkok hotel.
“I saw a job vacancy posting for a hospital in Bangkok on a website and applied for it. Two days later, I received communication from the company that I was selected and was to report immediately. The company itself booked my tickets to Bangkok. But after landing at the Bangkok airport, the person who was supposed to receive me did not show up. Instead, a group of unknown persons had kidnapped me and taken me to Myanmar,” says 35-year-old Manoj, a graduate who hails from Pendurthi in Visakhapatnam.
In Myanmar, Manoj was put in a building and forced to commit cybercrime by impersonating a female and extracting money from people from India, he says. “When I refused to do as they said, they tortured me, gave me electric shocks and thrashed me severely. I was not given food for days on end. I really thought I would die there,” he recalls.
Manoj somehow managed to contact his father even though there was no mobile phone facility, and he was put under surveillance round the clock. The Vizag City police, who learned about the issue through Manoj’s father, contacted the embassies of both countries and ensured Manoj reached home safely. The rescue took several weeks, say the police.
City under threat
Visakhapatnam has been topping the chart in Andhra Pradesh by registering most number of cybercrime cases over the past few years. Visakhapatnam district reported 621, the highest number of cybercrime cases among the other districts in Andhra Pradesh, the 2022, as per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report which was released a few days ago.
In 2022, over 26.5% of the 2,341 cybercrime cases reported in Andhra Pradesh were from Visakhapatnam district, followed by the Guntur district with 348 cases. In 2023, Visakhapatnam registered 410 cybercrime cases, which rose to 600 this year.
The recently formed NDA government in the State and Centre vows to focus especially on cybercrimes. As part of the measures taken to check these crimes, district-level cybercrime training programmes are being conducted for police personnel on how to tackle the crimes during the golden hour, the first hour after the complaint reports.
Andhra Pradesh Home Minister V. Anitha said that Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has issued directions to establish cybercrime police stations in every district. She said awareness campaigns are being intensified in all places, especially educational institutions, residential apartments, and other places.
However, these crimes’ victims have yet to find solace and justice. “For those who make millions, such frauds may not severely impact them financially. But there are cases like a retired government employee who lost his retirement benefits, a father who has saved money for his daughter’s marriage or son’s education, a software employee planning to buy a house and their lives have turned upside down because of the cyberfrauds,” admits Mr. Prasad Rao painfully.
“Don’t panic in case of any threatening calls from unknown persons. Please don’t hesitate to contact your nearest police station or any police personnel immediately for support”Bhavani Prasada Rao Inspector of Cyber Crime, Visakhapatnam
Dial 1930
The Inspector also insists that the public not panic in case of any threatening calls from unknown persons.
“Please don’t hesitate to contact your nearest police station or any police personnel immediately for support,” Mr. Prasad Rao urges the public.
Unfortunately, if anyone happens to transfer any amount to an unknown account, please dial ‘1930’ immediately, he stresses.
(Names of victims changed to protect identity)
Published – November 29, 2024 09:01 am IST