Police manage to save Rs 28 lakh lost to cyberfraud

HYDERABAD: Cybercrime cops managed to freeze nearly Rs 28 lakh in transactions after four victims lodged complaints of being defrauded within the ‘golden hour’. As the complainants raised concerns in quick time, the cybercrime sleuths were able to connect with the nodal managers of the respective banks and freeze the transactions, sources said.

Noting that the golden hour to report cybercrime is within an hour of the fraud, a police official said, “The victim needs to lodge the complaint as soon as possible. If there is any delay in reporting the case, there are chances that by then the fraudster would have already transferred the money from one account to several other accounts. There are higher chances of recovery if the victim reports the case within the golden hour.”

The four victims had reported a total loss of Rs 37 lakh, of which the police were able to recover Rs 28 lakh by freezing the money in the fraudster’s bank accounts.

In one of the recent cases, a victim had lost Rs 20 lakh after falling prey to a fake call from Mumbai police claiming that they were in trouble. However, as soon as they realised that they had been defrauded, the victim lodged a complaint and the cybercrime police registered a case on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal and escalated the matter with the bank concerned. “The bank responded immediately and blocked the entire transaction for Rs 20 lakh in the first layer of the transaction to the fraudster,” the police said.

In another instance, the police were able to retrieve Rs 1.75 lakh after the victim feared that they lost Rs 2 lakh by installing an APK to complete the KYC process.