Visakhapatnam: Every day at least 10 to 20 people are falling prey to scammers in Vizag City alone as the cases of cyber frauds have gone up rapidly during the past few months with most of the crimes arising from greed, ignorance, and fear of the victims. The ambit of cybercrimes is not only limited to financial losses, but it is also causing identity theft, cyber stalking, distribution of pornographic, material on the web as well as trafficking.
As per the data from the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, more than 13,000 people in Vizag City became victims of cyber crime, wherein monetary losses amounting to nearly Rs 100 crore were reported in the past few years.
Of the Rs 100 crore lost to the fraudsters, cyber cops were successful in freezing 18 crore transferred in various bank accounts of the country. Besides, the Vizag City police had retrieved Rs 4.6 crore of the frozen funds and the money was handed over to 150 victims, so far.
K. Bhavani Prasad, inspector attached to the cybercrime department, Vizag City, who was currently in New Delhi to execute the arrest of three criminals, said; “More than 1,500 complaints related to cyber crimes were received, so far, this year. Our police teams are working and engaged in grueling task of solving each case. We are travelling to far off places to apprehend online scammers.’’
The cybercriminals are using various modus-operandi such as matrimonial and dating apps to prey on targets. Several people belonging to Vizag City were duped by the crooks on the pretext of making investments in stock market.
According to the cyber wing of the Visakhapatnam police, around Rs 60 crore was lost to the cyber criminals in the past ten months of this year. The city witnessed 419 cybercrime cases in 2023, wherein crooks stole more than Rs 32 crore. In 2022, the city registered 610 cases of online fraud and the monetary loss was over Rs 16.33 crore. In 2021, several victims lost a sum of Rs 9.32 crore to the swindlers, and 279 cases were filed.
