THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It’s crazy. Despite numerous awareness campaigns, including constant reminders via text messages, against online scams, Keralites continue to lose lakhs of rupees to cyber fraudsters.
As per official police documents, scammers are, on an average, swindling a whopping Rs 85 lakh every day (you read that right) from Kerala! Going by the figure, it can be safely assumed Keralites would lose more than Rs 300 crore this year in cyber scams.
Between 2022 and 2024, cyber fraudsters swindled Rs 1,021 crore from Kerala, of which Rs 763 crore was siphoned off last year alone. As many as 41,426 complaints of online fraud were registered in 2024. In 2022 and 2023, the money lost was Rs 48 crore and Rs 210 crore, respectively. According to the police, trading scams claimed the most number of victims.
“Despite serious preventive measures, cyber criminals manage to identify victims by tweaking their strategies and the nature of scams,” a source in the Kerala Police cyber investigation division told TNIE. Earlier, the source said, job scams, digital arrest scams, gaming scams, romance fraud and the like were prevalent. “Now, trading scams claim the most number of victims, many of whom hail from high-income groups that comprises working and retired professionals,” said the source.
In fact, those hailing from affluent strata of society fall prey to trading scams, the source said, adding, “Surprisingly, many victims trade via bonafide firms. Then, they channelise some of the fund to phoney trading apps. What’s confusing is that many victims go for these apps despite being aware of the pitfalls of trading via those.” Another officer, who did not wished to be named, said during investigation into a few cases, certain details emerged suggesting a link between hawala rackets and scamsters.
It was noted that certain hawala rackets, upon receiving money from abroad, sought scammers’ support to send cash to Indian accounts. The scammers transferred the ill-gotten money to accounts mentioned by the person who handed over the money to hawala rackets. In return, hawala rackets paid the fraudsters in cryptocurrency.
The probe into cyber financial crimes, said police sources, is both time-consuming and expensive. “Since culprits use VPNs (virtual private networks), which encrypt data, investigation is fraught with challenges. Even if the culprits are identified – say there are four people involved all from other states – the police team has to conduct field work for at least 10 days in those states to arrest them. We have a high number of cases to investigate; it puts a huge stress on the state’s exchequer,” the officer said.
The scammers mostly operate in northern states, said the officer. “Keralites are regularly targeted due to the state’s geographical location. We are very far away from the scammers. So they assume it would be tough for us to reach them even if they are identified,” the officer said.