Virtual crimes on the rise in Andhra Pradesh

Visakhapatnam: As cyber criminals are turning tech savvy and coming up with new means of duping people, hardly one per cent of the 65,000 strong police in Andrha Pradesh are aware of cyber crimes.

The cops in the state are at a great loss on how to tackle and solve these cases. A total of 400 cyber crime cases were reported in Vizag city in 2016, but not a single case was detected by the cops. It clearly reflects the lack of necessary investigation skills of the cops.

In 2016, a total of 718 cyber crimes were reported in the state with Vizag  emerging as cyber crime capital with 400 cases, including net banking (vishing and phishing), online job frauds, Nigerian frauds and few others.

  Most of the victims in cyber crimes have lost hope of recovering their money as most of the cases were under investigation process for years. From 2010 to 2016, in Vizag city alone so far 857 cyber crimes were under investigation.

AP top cop N. Sambasiva Rao said that over 99 per cent cops in the force are not trained to investigate or deal with cyber crimes and ironically some cops have also become victims of the cyber crimes. 

It is very difficult to  detect the cyber crimes without efficient and trained police hands and latest equipment as  detecting cyber frauds is like searching for a needle in a haystack.

The DGP said that a high-end cyber crime lab which will have the components of cyber forensic will be set up in Vizag city with an estimated cost of '20 crore to deal with cyber crimes.

“We are also planning to seek support from  IT companies to train some tech savvy young cops and post them in cyber crime investigation for effective investigation into the cases.”