Hubballi: Residents of the twin cities are losing an average Rs 11 lakh every day to online fraudsters. Consequently, they have lost a total of Rs 20 crore in the last six months. Ironically, a majority of the victims of cyber crimes are educated, in some cases, even those with engineering and medicine background have also fallen prey to the conmen.
Despite several awareness programmes from the police, government agencies, and private organisations, cyber crimes are on the rise in Hubballi-Dharwad. People, who are aware of online transactions, are being targeted by cyber criminals.
In the first half of this calendar year, Hubballi-Dharwad Cyber Economic and Narcotics (CEN) crime police station has registered 114 cyber fraud cases in the twin cities. In these cases, people lost Rs 19.98 crore of their hard-earned money in six months.
CEN crime Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Shivaraj Katakbhavi said that in the last six months, people have lost Rs 19,98,50,028 in cyber crimes. In some cases, soon after the crime, victims informed the police about the incident. As soon as we received the required information from the victims, we asked the banks to freeze such particular accounts.
“In the last six months, we froze Rs 7.85 crore money from various bank accounts across the country. We are investigating those transactions and returning money to some victims, who produce necessary documents, and some other victims are yet to get their money back,” he said and added that if any individuals lost money, they should inform the police immediately, so they could freeze bank accounts concerned.
Share trading
In the twin cities, most people lost money in share trading frauds only. Believing social media advertisements which promise good returns on their investment, people invest in share trading through fake websites and lose money. Free-time job scams are also on the rise, where fraudsters lure gullible people to earn easy money by liking and commenting on some pages and videos. Later, the fraudsters somehow convince victims to invest in various trades that give high returns.
Another police officer said that many people wish their money would work for them and earn profit. Hence, without knowing the credibility of the website, people invest in share trading through fake firms and lose money.
There are several types of fraud such as share trading, free time job, lottery scams, job frauds, matrimonial frauds, loan frauds, OTP frauds, cryptocurrency, courier scams, and much more.
Bank accounts
North Indian bank accounts are being used for the cyber frauds that take place in South India. To investigate these frauds the CEN police have to travel to Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, and other states. Many CEN police in the City are always seen travelling to various North Indian states as part of their investigation.