VISAKHAPATNAM: Despite the awareness drives and a few other steps, Vizag is the top city in the state in terms of total cybercrime victims. Though the cybercrime incidents in Vizag city have dipped by over 30 per cent in 2023 compared to the previous year, the enforcement officials said cybercrooks are becoming increasingly tech savvy and come up with innovative means to dupe people whereas cops are at a loss on how to tackle them.
In 2023, Vizag witnessed more than 410 major cybercrime incidents and the cybercrook stole over Rs 31.7 crore from the residents. City recorded 610 cases of cybercrimes in 2022, where the cyber crooks stole over Rs 16.33 crore from netizens. The cyber crooks had stolen over Rs 9.32 crore from Vizagites through various duping methods in 279 cases
Many Vizagites lost a good amount of money in the online part-time job scam by cybercriminals. The scam involves cybercriminal contacting targets and offering them part-time employment opportunities, requiring them to like, subscribe and review posts.
The cases of online task game frauds have been increasing in Vizag, Vijayawada and few other cities and towns in Andhra Pradesh. The victims have lost over Rs20 crore in the new trend of cyber frauds and many victims have not come forward to complain.Cybercrooks have been duping netizens, particularly unemployed youngsters, students, housewives, and those working in BPOs and IT firms, along with a few others, under the guise of task games
The cybercrooks used to collect details of people from various job search sites and target them by luring in the name of online-part jobs. The fraudsters used to send messages to their targets. If at all, the person clicks those links, it would redirect to a separate WhatsApp group,where they were asked to write reviews on restaurants and other subjects for which they were promised to pay Rs200 to Rs500 and later they turned out to be victims of fraud.
Apart from the online part time jobs, most of the complaints were received in connection with downloading the mirror apps. The scammers have found innovative ways to steal money as more netizens rely on online transactions for daily payments.
The fraudsters pretending to be bank officers, call bank customers and ask them to download applications. Once the screen sharing is enabled, the cybercrooks sitting at a remote place can access information on the customer’s mobile phone and they use it to make transactions from the account holder's account, said a senior police officer.
Vizag city police chief Dr. A Ravi Shankar said that they have decided to strengthen the cybercrime police station in the city by deploying the tech-savvy police personnel to deal with different modes of virtual frauds. Apart from strengthening the cyber-wing, we will tie up with some IT firms to impart training to the police to solve and mitigate the new trends of cybercrimes, he added.
Greed is one of the main causes for people falling prey to cybercrimes despite extensive exposure to its dangers. Interestingly, the majority of the registered cybercrimes in Vizag city were still under investigation only as the police struggle to identify the accused and nab them.
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Nalla Ram is a Special Correspondent, at the Times of India-Visak...
Read MoreNalla Ram is a Special Correspondent, at the Times of India-Visakhapatnam. He reports on crime, rural development, road transport, Indian Navy, sea food industry, weather, research in agriculture, legal, civic issues and data-driven stories. He holds postgraduate degree in journalism & mass communication.
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