As people stayed home, cyber fraud tripled during lockdown in Delhi

NEW DELHI: Despite the entire country being under lockdown, fraudsters seemed to have a field day as the number of cybercrime complaints tripled during this period. Data released by Delhi Police showed that 3,430 complaints were received in May compared with 1,260 in January.

While 60% of the complaints were regarding financial fraud, 20% were of online harassment. As of now, over 1,000 cases have been registered and inquiry is under way in many cases as various social media platforms have not shared the relevant details.


Several accounts and IDs through which people were defrauded in the name of Covid-19 donations were also blocked in the recent past. Over 80 blocked IDs pertained to the PM-Cares fund. About 150 social media accounts were blocked for posting provocative content.

In all, 14,286 complaints were lodged till June 29 this year of which 9,487 were received from April to June. The complaints were made on the common cybercrime portal that was launched in August 2019. Between January and March, 4,799 complaints were received, the maximum (1,849) being in February.

Since people were using payment gateways and online banking during the lockdown, most cases pertain to fraudulent transactions.

DCP (Cyber Crime) Anyesh Roy said, “We have been making people aware of the online scams through print and social media. The most common ways are cashback offers, free vouchers and callers asking people to initiate transactions, scan QR codes or download applications and give details of OTPs. So far, we have registered over 1,200 such cases based on complaints received on the portal.”

Many also took to Twitter to complain about the creation of their fake social media profiles and fraudsters asking for money from such accounts. Most cases pertained to debit/credit cards, e-wallet payment and scamsters calling people to transfer money. Complaints were also made regarding stalking, provocative online content and cyber bullying.

Investigating officers said that a probe is on in around 52% of the complaints. “In most of the complaints, information is required from social media platforms, email service providers, e-wallets, banks, etc. Because of work from home restrictions in other countries, it took more time to process details,” an officer said.

Police were forced to close 30% of the complaints due to insufficient details provided by the complainants and lack of unlawful content on the online platforms.