With their operation "Cyber Prahar", Delhi Police cracked down on Covidcheats, booked 372 FIRs
New Delhi, May 11
Following the surge of Covid cases and shortage of oxygen supply and life saving drugs in Delhi, the fraudsters grew in numbers by the day to cheat citizens. The Delhi Police's ' Operation Prahar' crackdown heavily on Covidcheats.
Delhi Police has so far registered 372 FIRs against Covid cheats, arrested 91 persons, seized 95 devices and frozen 214 bank accounts within cheated amount of Rs. 53.60 lakhs. Through MHA (14C) Cyber Helpline, Rs. 6.60 lakhs of defrauded money was put on hold.
The police received over 910 calls for distress for various issues related to Covid cases. The police sent 810 numbers were sent to DOT for blocking. 168 numbers were tagged as Covid scam numbers.
The officials stated that with uncertainties around several questions related to movements, medicine, oxygen etc., the Social Media (SM) Monitoring Cell of Delhi Police, under close monitoring by CP Delhi, started answering the concerned public with relevant answers and guidance.
The questions of scarcity and sudden jump in the requirements of hospital beds, select life-saving medicines and later oxygen support shot up. The organized cheats were as if all were waiting for this human tragedy to unfold. There was a sudden and substantial change in the nature of distress calls being received - #covidcheat becoming most important amongst all others.
To aide the citizens getting cheated by fake medicine suppliers, oxygen cylinder hoarders, blackmarkeeters, Delhi police augmented the capacities of its Covid Helpline 011-23469900 for reporting #covidcheat cases.
The police also launched awareness campaign requesting citizens to lodge cyber fraud instances on www.cybercrime.gov.in and use the Delhi special pilot cyber financial fraud helpline 155260 and www.acpcybercell1.delhipolice.gov.inwas initiated.
All the DistrictCyber Cells and Cybercrime Unit of Crime Branch joined hands with CyPAD and a system of generation of 12 hourly situation reports on complaints and FIR was established.
The officials stated that there was continuous analysis of registered cases and complaints indicated that while a majority of suspect SIM cards were subscribed and sourced from one State, the places from where these SIM cards were being used was another State. Moreover, the beneficiary accounts where these SIM users were receiving cheated moneys were scattered all over the country – States like West Bengal, Bihar, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka appeared as being highly affected by the presence of this cybercriminal network.
The DGPs of concerned regions were contacted by CP Delhi for coordinated effort to wipe out covid Cheats and strong teams from Crime, CyPAD and Districts were sent to locate and dismantle the infrastructure of #covid cheaters.
CyPAD, being the focal unit, reached out to I4C/MHA and through it, to the National Banking & Financial Sector and the Regulators of Telecom Industry apart from leading private players and operators.
As the #covidcheat was peaking, CyPAD was sending out 12 hourly alerts to (a) I4C and its Joint Cyber Crime Investigation Platforms of Mewat, Jamtara, Ahmadabad, Chandigarh and Hyderabad, (b) DOT and (c) Banking Sector with specific, actionable information to get the beneficiary accounts frozen, the cheater’s SIM cards suspended pending KYC re-verification and related IMEIs black-listed.
Speaking about the operations, the officials said that Delhi police adopted two pronged strategy: facilitated citizens for easy lodging of complaints at helpline and portal and proactively instantly started taking actions to dismantle the ecosystem of covid frauds.
As the trend analysis will show, all in all, the peak started to show a rapid decline within 48 hours and the daily reporting of cases has now come back to the pre-first May levels with the coordinated police action, the #covid cheater is being well taken care of.
The police was taking cognizance on one hand and acted on the criminals and their ecosystem and successfully curbed the rising trends of covid cheats.
There are 20 teams in action on ground in several States; a substantial number of arrests are likely in the coming few days.
The aspect of physical arrests is being taken up with great prudence and caution since there is widespread lockdown, and the police staff has to adhere to personal safety protocols while operating in remote areas of far flung states.
