JOIN USFumbling free falls into frauds
The caller was frantic, persuasive and extremely convincing. Halting his hurried run to office midway, Shekhar Rao retreated, anxious to check his credit card.
In that moment of tension, he spelt out every detail the caller sought. The lapse cost his dear, an unauthorized banking transaction that left him in shock!
Rao’s quick damage control saved him from utter bankruptcy. An SMS alert helped him instantly call his bank to report the fraud. But scores of urban, educated Bengalureans, at the receiving end of such fraudulent calls daily, are not so lucky. Trapped by smooth-talking banking frauds -- both online and offline --, they find themselves clearly out in the cold.
Yet, as this monster of a problem spreads its tentacles, has the law and order machinery kept pace? Has cyber policing geared up to combat the growing challenge? Clueless about reporting fraud calls, fumbling for remedial measures, the victims aren’t sure.
Claiming that Karnataka has the country’s best cyber law enforcers, Deputy Inspector General of Police, Economic Offences & Cyber Crime, CID, Hemant Nimbalkar is convinced that a counter-mechanism is in place. But people, he emphasizes in equal measure, should be extra vigilant while talking personal finance with strangers.
A random study of the banking fraud complaints has indicated a clear trend: That most victims are well-educated urban-dwellers with a fair knowledge of how the internet works, and how online banking transactions are carried out.
They easily fall prey to the fraudsters, who have mastered various techniques of brain-washing, as Nimbalkar explains.
The State police system, he reiterates, is the most computerised in the entire country. “We have the most active e-police. Still people fall for false emails, calls and messages. People should be alert and know that nobody gives a free pie. When you agree for a financial transaction without physically meeting, you are already getting exposed to cheating.”
Social media campaign
To combat the criminals and their techniques, the CID has launched a social media campaign on both Facebook and Twitter. But the well-organised racket demands a much more robust strategy. Since most calls related to banking frauds originate from Delhi and other North Indian cities, a nationwide, coordinated approach is critical.
The emergence of free WiFi hotspots in Bengaluru, while easing connectivity, could also be manipulated by criminal elements to anonymously push phishing. Are there sound security checks in place? Nimbalkar contends that such monitoring could lead to charges of moral policing and invasion of privacy.
But even if the cyber police were to track such communications, calls from mobile phones prove to be tricky. Often, the mobile service providers are given false addresses in distant cities, making the culprits extremely tough to trace.
Of late, calls linked to insurance claims have spiked in the City. Invariably, the callers pose as officials from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA). Apparently, the circular issued by IRDA in September 2014, warning people not to fall for fictitious offers, have not made much impact.
Insurance frauds
Since insurance policies are long-term, the fraudsters play on the policy-holder’s memory. For instance, a Bengalurean had received a call in June that his 20-year-old policy was expiring soon. He was also told that unless immediate steps were taken, his agent would end up siphoning off 75 per cent of the maturity amount.
To make it sound convincing, the fraud IRDA caller claimed that the agent had forced the policy-holder to sign an additional paper on the application. It was 20 years ago, and there was no way the claimant could verify this. But the IRDA would help him, provided he paid a nominal service tax amount.
The multimedia revolution had already posed big challenges for fraud trackers. The booming sales of net-connected smartphones and unprecedented popularity of social media tools such as WhatsApp have massively boosted the fraudsters’ ability to trap vulnerable victims. Cyber crime police officials in the City have warned users not to forward suspicious posts without verifying their origins.
But no amount of caution and awareness has stopped the fraudsters from trying ingenious ways to trap their victims. Last month, the Chickpet police nabbed a gang of six Nigerians for cheating people on the promise of selling dirt cheap cars. They had simply posted fancy classified ads on sites such as Olx.in and Quikr.com. Among their thousands of victims were doctors, chartered accountants and even lawyers. The racket was active for four years.
Cyber crime stations
Given the complex nature of the cyber crimes linked to economic offences, this IT City justifiably deserves a robust network of cyber crime police stations. But even the first one has had severe birth pangs. The cyber-crime cell at the CID headquarters, which acts as a default station, cannot handle the huge number of complaints since its jurisdiction is the entire State.
City police commissioner, M N Reddi assures that a separate station to deal exclusively with cyber crime cases in the City will be set up soon. The station, complete with trained personnel, will work within the Central Crime Branch (CCB) of the city police.
But simultaneously, the jurisdictional police will have to be trained to handle cases related to cyber crimes and frauds. Currently, as lower level officials reveal, most personnel are unable to deal with such cases.
Investigating cases with multiple social media dimensions is still a big grey area. Besides, in cases of phone frauds that originate from Delhi and other distant cities, coordination between the police forces of different states is critical. This too is an area that has not received the attention it deserves.
It is in this context that the Union government’s recent proposal for a cybercrime coordination centre assumes importance. Complaints linked to cyber crimes against individuals across India are to be directed to this centre for technical analysis.
A suitable redressal mechanism will then be identified before the concerned law enforcement agency takes up the probe. Modelled after the US Internet Crime Complaint Centre (IC3), this Centre is likely to be packed with IT experts.