Collaboration key to curbing menace of digital arrests
Cyber swindlers continue to be on the prowl across India, ever inventive in their subterfuge. Notwithstanding regular warnings from the Reserve Bank, commercial banks, and law enforcement agencies, legions of citizens fall prey with dispiriting regularity. Fresh stratagems to defraud surface regularly, with the most lucrative one at present being the so-called ‘digital arrest’, in which impostors masquerade online as officers of the law and subject victims, often senior citizens, to a sustained psychological siege to rob them. Armed with sophisticated tools, these racketeers conjure convincing facsimiles of courtrooms and police stations until their targets surrender emotionally and transfer large sums for an ‘official pardon’ or ‘bailout’.
The Supreme Court’s recent ‘shock’ at being told that more than ₹3,000 crore had been syphoned off through such digital arrests underlines the urgency in confronting this growing menace. The apex court took suo motu cognisance after an elderly couple from Haryana was ‘virtually detained’ on the basis of forged judicial and investigative orders, and coerced into parting with over ₹1 crore. The court has now sought a comprehensive probe into the menace.
Evidence suggests that a significant share of these crimes is orchestrated from across the border and the money laundered through organised financial networks. This brings a human-trafficking dimension to the financial crime. Indians recruited by transnational criminal syndicates with promises of lucrative IT or marketing roles are subsequently compelled to run online scams under inhuman conditions. Myanmar and Cambodia have emerged as big hubs for this industrialised criminal syndicates. Several hundred Indians have managed to flee these scam factories this year alone; many more are estimated to be still trapped.
This cross-border element makes coordination essential in tackling cybercrime—between states in the country or with the authorities in other nations. The training of law officers and inter-state collaborative work that the I4C or Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre has been doing must be vastly expanded. Its work with tech and telecom firms in thwarting crime must evolve constantly to anticipate novel ruses. Banks must deploy sharper analytics and resilient IT systems to flag high-value transfers to unrelated individuals and offshore accounts. Above all, sustained public awareness is indispensable. Only a well-informed citizenry, aided by agile institutions, can blunt these scamsters.