The Indian government has seized and recovered over Rs.1,000 crore belonging to 400,000 citizens from cyber criminals, the Centre on Friday informed the Parliament on a series of questions raised by Rajya Saba MP Sushil Kumar Modi on the use of fraudulent mobiles and cybercrime.
Union minister of communications, electronics and information technology Ashhwini Vaishnaw said that 132,000 mobile connections have been blocked, and an additional 278,000 connections have been disconnected linked to cybercrime and financial fraud by the government.
Vaishnaw said that more than 5.5 million illegal mobile connections “obtained on fake documents” have also been blocked as part of initiatives taken by the Union government to combat mobile fraud.
He replied that the government has developed a system to detect fraudulent mobile connections. “Once detected, the Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) are directed to carry out re-verification of such mobile connections…upon failing re-verification, such mobile connections are disconnected,” he said in a written reply to the Parliament.
The government has also developed a portal – Sanchar Saathi that allows users to check mobile connections issued in their name and report illegal connections. It also allows users to report their stolen or lost phones, after which the numbers are blocked across all TSPs, Vaishnaw wrote.
He said that citizens can also report international calls received with a mobile or a landline number.
To prevent text-based cyber fraud, Artificial Intelligence (AI) analysis of text messages has resulted in a 36% reduction in text-based cybercrime between February 2023 and November 2023, informed the Union minister.
According to the data provided by the government, 220,000 WhatsApp accounts linked to illegal mobile connections have been disengaged, and 162 illegal telecom set-ups have been busted since 2021.
Vaishnaw said that more than 365 cases were registered against errant Points of Sale, and 70,313 have been blacklisted. Moreover, 983,000 accounts have been frozen by ‘Banks and Payments’ wallets linked with disconnected mobile phones as well, the government said.
The government advises everyone to report fraudulent and suspicious calls on 1963 / 1800110420.
