Phishing calls top cybercrime cases in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: Citizens have lost over Rs 4 crore to cyber frauds and the police could only recover around Rs 52 lakh. Majority of the cases were phishing calls. Commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat said that an aggressive campaign is initiated to create awareness.  

Nearly 192 phishing call cases and spoofing calls were reported, while 52 cases of abuse on social media were reported. Nine cases of lottery frauds involving Nigerian nationals and 38 jobs frauds were also reported. In most of the phishing call offences, the suspects appro-ached the victims as bank officials and collected their debit card details under the pretext of upgrading the account or linking it to Aadhaar. Another mod-us operandi is cheating under the pretext of selling products on Olx and other e-commerce sites.

Sixty persons, including 47 Indian nationals and 13 foreign nationals, were arrested in connection with 366 cases, where citizens lost Rs 42,74,416 and Rs 52,30,051 was recovered.

The commissioner said that a new cyber crime lab, costing Rs 4 crore, is established at LB Nagar. Rachakonda achieved 21 per cent conviction rate.