New Delhi, May 11: The Delhi Police has so far registered over 370 FIRs against “COVID cheats”, arrested 91 persons, seized 95 devices and frozen more than 200 bank accounts, officials said on Tuesday. According to police, they have registered 372 cases and frozen 214 bank accounts with a total cheated amount of Rs 53.60 lakh. Police said they have adopted a two-pronged strategy. In the first one, the citizens are being facilitated for easy lodging of complaints through a helpline and portal while the second approach involved instantly taking action to dismantle the ecosystem of “COVID frauds”. There was a sudden and substantial change in the nature of distress calls being received with “COVID cheats” becoming most important amongst all others. In a swift move, the Delhi Police augmented the capacities of its COVID helpline 011-2346 9900 for reporting cheating cases related to COVID-19 issues, they said. Simultaneously, awareness campaigns requesting citizens to lodge cyber frauds on www.cybercrime.gov.in and using the Delhi special pilot cyber financial fraud helpline 155260 and www.acpcybercell1.delhipolice.gov.in was initiated, police said.
All the district cyber cells and cybercrime units of Crime Branch joined hands with the Cyber Prevention Awareness and Detection (CyPAD) and a system of generating 12 hourly situation reports on complaints along with an FIR was established, the officials said. Continuous analysis of registered cases and complaints indicated that while a majority of suspect SIM cards were subscribed and sourced from one state, the SIM cards were being used in another state, they said. Moreover, the beneficiary accounts where these SIM card users were receiving the duped money lie scattered all over the country with states like West Bengal, Bihar, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka highly affected by the presence of this cyber criminal network, police said. The Director Generals of Police of the states concerned were contacted by the Delhi Police commissioner for coordinated efforts to wipe out “COVID cheats” with strong teams from the Crime, CyPAD and districts sent to locate and dismantle the infrastructure of “Covid cheats”, they said. Officials said CyPAD, being the focal unit, reached out to the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Center (I4C)/MHA and through it to the National Banking and Financial Sector and the Regulators of Telecom Industry apart from leading private players and operators. as cases of “Covid cheats” were peaking, CyPAD was sending 12 hourly alerts to I4C and its joint cyber crime investigation platforms of Mewat, Jamtara, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh and Hyderabad, Department of Telecommunications and banking sector with specific, actionable information to get the beneficiary accounts frozen, the cheater’s SIM cards suspended pending KYC re-verification and related IMEIs blacklisted, police said. The citizens were advised to follow safety tips during online transactions. The peak started to show a rapid decline and the daily reporting of cases has now reduced with the coordinated police action, they said. We were taking cognisance on one hand and acted on the criminals and their ecosystem and successfully curbed the rising trends of COVID cheats. There are 20 teams in action on the ground in several states while a substantial number of arrests are likely in the coming few days, the officials added.
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