Kolkata residents lost ₹ 100 crore to cyber scams this year: Police

Kolkata residents have been defrauded of a whopping ₹ 100 crore through cyber fraud during the last year, police said.

Police Commissioner Kolkata Manoj Kumar Verma said during the monthly crime conference on Dec 28. Of the total defrauded amount, only 15% could be recovered, sources were quoted as saying.

Verma attributed this to various methods of fraud — including ticket booking, digital arrest, intimidation of drug trafficking, KYC update, bait of investment in shares, and OTP shares.

“If we talk about the state as a whole, it is huge. Cybercrime is rising fast… in a few years, it will be the only crime prevalent. White-collar conmen are only looking for virtual platforms. The recent trend shows these crimes are being controlled from Cambodia, Dubai, Sri Lanka, and Hong Kong,” Bivas Chatterjee, Special PP of cyber cases and a cyber expert was quoted as saying.

To assist citizens, Bengal Cyber Crime has recently launched a 24/7 helpline (1930) for recording complaints on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, sources were quoted as saying.

The central government has also taken significant steps to combat cybercrime, including blocking over 6 lakh SIM cards and 1 lakh IMEI numbers linked to fraudulent activities — according to the Union Home Ministry in a recent Parliament session.

It was said that ₹ 3,431 crore has been recovered from over 9,94,000 cyber fraud complaints across the country, according to the latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report from 2022.