Cybercrime: Fake I-T inquiry, hoax threat calls likely in ’25

Bengaluru: Cybercriminals have begun the “third phase” of their operations, which will soon see a fall in “digital arrests” but likely see rise in cases of fake “income tax” inquiry and hoax threat calls to parents, senior cybercrime officers in Karnataka said. 

According to them, analyses by cybercrime investigators in the Karnataka police, including in the CID, show that in 2025, scamsters are most likely to make calls to unsuspecting victims and threaten them with an “income tax” inquiry. 

“We have come across a few such cases of calls being made,” a senior cybercrime officer said. “Since an income tax inquiry would alarm people just like an arrest warrant, they are likelier to fall for this. Hence, it is advised to be cautious.” 

Investigators also believe scamsters posing as police may target parents with hoax calls demanding a ransom since their “children were kidnapped or in some cases, they were arrested or involved in some serious crimes like smuggling narcotics, murder or even rape”. 

“Either the calls are made blindly and the targets are random, or they have access to databases, which is a case of concern. One example could be as simple as a student filling out their admission forms or competitive exam application, which contain their data,” said the senior officer, who received a few of those calls. 

In July this year, Mangaluru police registered a case after three to four parents received calls that their children were arrested by the police and demanded money for their release. Police found that the calls were made through Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) with country codes from Pakistan. 

“This, however, is much more difficult to execute compared to other scams as the window, where the threats are made, is a mere few minutes. All the victim has to do is not panic and immediately contact the school and the local police,” he added. 

While major data breaches haven’t been reported so far, the senior officer urged that it was important to take measures to safeguard the databases, especially the ones with data on children and students, and set up firewalls and robust cybersecurity measures, while the police continued with their investigations. 

A senior police officer, who has overseen several cybercrime investigations in Karnataka in the last two years, opined: “It has been learnt that their [scamsters’] first phase was the FedEx scam and the second was digital arrest fraud, which took the country by storm in the last few months, which will decline from 2025.” 

He said that one of the trends they observed when digital arrest scams rose was that the FedEx scam cases declined drastically. 

“We seldom come across cases related to the FedEx fraud now,” he said. “After FedEx, the scamsters moved to digital arrest,” he said, adding that due to suspicious calls with the +91 code being blocked, scamsters were more likely to rely on codes of other countries, which should immediately alert people.