Visakhapatnam: There has been a sharp drop in the number of complaints on cyber crimes since the demonetisation drive over the past four months from November-2016 to February-17 in Andhra Pradesh. There is an increase in the use of credit, debit cards and net-banking payments in many parts of the state but the cops have not encountered any new trend in digital transaction frauds, be it due to enhanced user vigilance or the fact that cyber criminals have preferred to lay low.
The AP police has registered over 30 cyber crimes in the past four months. Most of these were vishing and phishing frauds. Some police officers, however, believe that many cyber crimes in the state have not been reported. With an increasing number of people using digital transactions for the past few months, cyber criminals have been exploiting the situation and stealing credit and debit cards and net banking details. However, very few victims are lodging complaint, they added.
“Though we expected cyber crimes to go up with people being forced to use digital transactions following the demonetisation drive, we received only 16 complaints in the past four months from various parts of Vizag city which is surprising," said Inspector of Cyber Crimes Investigation Cell (CCIC) K. Satyanarayana Rao. Cyber criminals have been updating themselves and it was important for people using digital transactions to be cautious to avoid being duped by cyber criminals, he added.
In 2016 (from January to October), around 700 cyber crimes were reported in Andhra Pradesh. Vizag city had emerged cyber crime capital with 400 cases, including net banking (Vishing and Phishing), online job frauds, Nigerian frauds and others being reported. Most of the victims in cyber crimes have lost hopes of getting their lost money as the 400 cyber crimes cases are still under investigation.
People have also been visiting their banks regularly and keeping a check on their account books to avoid being a victim of cyber crimes. Fraudsters have been calling the plastic card holders for details of people’s cards posing as bank officials to get some key information such as PIN and OTB to transfer money into mobile wallet accounts, but most of the people are aware about such crimes hence there is a dip in cyber crimes, said DCP (crime) T. Ravi Kumar Murthy.
