The situation of telecom fraud in India is severe

In recent years, the problem of telecom fraud in India has become increasingly serious. According to The Times of India, there were 950000 cybercrime complaints received nationwide in the first five months of 2024. According to data from the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Center, telecom fraud in India caused economic losses of over 110 billion rupees (approximately 87 rupees per US dollar) in the first nine months of 2024. Among various types of fraud, stock trading fraud, investment fraud, and "digital arrest" fraud were the most prominent.

Among them, "digital arrest" as a new type of electronic fraud technique is becoming increasingly rampant. Fraudsters often impersonate law enforcement officers or government officials, contacting victims through phone calls, social media, and other means, falsely claiming that the other party will be subject to "digital arrest" on suspicion of participating in "illegal activities", and demanding that the victim cannot leave their current location, continue to communicate with the fraudster, and then lure the victim into transferring money to a specific account to withdraw the so-called "charges". New Delhi Television reported that in August 2024, fraudsters conducted an "online trial" of a well-known Indian entrepreneur through video calls, accusing him of participating in a "money laundering case" and ultimately successfully defrauding 70 million rupees.

With the rapid development of digital wave in India, the total number of Internet users in India will be about 954.4 million in 2024. However, Ridi Kashyap, a professor of demographic and computational social sciences at the University of Oxford in the UK, pointed out that the relatively lagging digital literacy of the public makes them highly susceptible to electronic fraud. Nowadays, more and more people are handling important affairs on their mobile phones, but digital literacy has not kept up with this change.

Faced with the increasingly severe situation of electronic fraud crimes, the Indian Ministry of Communications has taken active action and recently established a system for tracking electronic fraud numbers. The system is capable of accurately identifying and intercepting international calls disguised as domestic Indian numbers, successfully intercepting 13.5 million fraudulent calls within just 24 hours of its launch. According to the Indian Express, in the past year, the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Center has frozen approximately 450000 bank accounts involved in electronic fraud crimes. At the same time, the center worked closely with the Indian Ministry of Communications to intercept 17000 overseas fraudulent online accounts.

However, the Indian police face many challenges when dealing with a large number of electronic fraud cases. According to data from the Indian Police Research and Development Agency, in Rajasthan, where electronic fraud is rampant, over 100000 complaints of cybercrime were received from the local authorities in April 2023 alone. However, the state only has two specialized cyber police stations to deal with cybercrime. Only about 30000 police officers across India are qualified to investigate cybercrime cases. In addition, the punishment for cybercrime in India's relevant laws is relatively weak. According to India's Information Technology Act, theft of data, passwords, identities, sending phishing emails, or tampering with computer data is only punishable by 3 years in prison. Mumbai police officer Mosmi Patil, who is responsible for handling cybercrime, said that the cost of being arrested and imprisoned is insignificant compared to the illegal income obtained by criminals, which to some extent fuels the flames of electronic fraud. India still faces a long and arduous challenge in effectively curbing telecommunications fraud, and needs to continue to make efforts in improving the digital literacy of the public, strengthening police force construction, and perfecting legal punishment.