CHANDIGARH: Punjab has seen a massive spurt in cybercrime in recently. In the last two years, the state police received 2,577 complaints about cybercrime, of which 1,465 have been solved and 1,112 are still pending. A total of 715 accused have been arrested.
The most common cybercrime cases in the state include ATM cloning, altering credit cards, net banking scams, fake insurance and scam emails.
“The miscreants also hack social media accounts of people and steal personal information. There have also been complaints about fake bank apps that steal the user’s sensitive information at a touch. These types of complaints are increasing every day and users need to be vigilant,” said a police officer.
According to sources, most of the culprits get SIM cards using fake identification and then use the mobile numbers to scam people.
“The accused call up people posing as bank officials and ask for their credit or debit card number, ATM PIN, login ID, CVV number, expiry date and one-time password. On getting these details money from the victim’s account is transferred into e-wallets created using fake documents,’’ said an official.
He said that the victims of cybercrime often delete transaction details from their phones after the fraud is
committed which should be avoided as these details may help the police to track down the criminals.
Recently, MP Preneet Kaur, wife of Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh was duped of Rs 23 lakh.
Later, the Punjab Police foiled a bigger cyber fraud as it sealed 215 fake bank accounts containing Rs 5.33 crore.