Govt Targets Cyber Thieves

Telecom operators are likely to disconnect a record 1.8 million or so mobile connections at one go as part of the government’s first countrywide operation to curb cybercrime and online fraud, officials said.

This follows a comprehensive investigation by various law enforcement agencies to track misuse of mobile connections for committing cybercrime and financial fraud.

During investigations, it was detected that in many instances, a single handset was used with thousands of mobile connections.

In May the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had asked telcos to disconnect 28,220 mobile handsets and re-verify over two million mobile connections misused with these handsets.

“Typically, we have found that in such instances, only 10% of the connections get verified and the rest get disconnected, failing re-verification,” an official said,

The development comes amid a steady rise in the number of mobile phone-based cybercrimes in the country. According to National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP), victims of digital financial fraud lost Rs 10,319 crore in 2023. More than 694,000 complaints were received in 2023, as per a report by the parliamentary standing committee on finance. Fraudsters typically use SIM cards of different telecom circles and regularly change the combination of SIM and handsets to duck the radar of law enforcement agencies as well as telecom operators.

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