‘Police’ and ‘Public Order’ are State subjects as per the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution of India. The States/UTs are primarily responsible for the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of crimes including cyber crime and digital arrest scams through their Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs).
The Central Government supplements the initiatives of the States/UTs through advisories and financial assistance under various schemes for capacity building of their LEAs.
The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) compiles and publishes the statistical data on crimes in its publication “Crime in India”.The latest published report is for the year 2022. Specific data
regarding digital arrest scams is not maintained separately by NCRB.
To strengthen the mechanism to deal with cyber crimes including digital arrest scams in a comprehensive and coordinated manner, the Central Government has taken steps which, inter-alia, include the following:
The Ministry of Home Affairs has set up the ‘Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre’ (I4C) as an attached office to deal with all types of cybercrimes in the country, in a coordinated and comprehensive manner.
The Central Government has launched a comprehensive awareness programme on digital arrest scams which, inter-alia, include;newspaper advertisement, announcement in Delhi Metros, use of social media influencers to create special posts, campaign through Prasar Bharti and electronic media, special programme on Aakashvani and participated in Raahgiri Function at Connaught Place, New Delhi on
27.11.2024.I4C proactively identify and blocked more than 1700 Skype IDs and 59,000 Whatsapp accounts used for Digital Arrest.
The Central Government has published a Press Release on Alert against incidents of ‘Blackmail’ and ‘Digital Arrest’ by Cyber Criminals Impersonating State/UT Police, NCB, CBI, RBI and other Law Enforcement Agencies.
The Central Government and Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) have devised a system to identify and block incoming international spoofed calls displaying Indian mobile numbers appear to be originating within India. Such international spoofed calls have been made by cyber-criminals in recent cases of fake digital arrests, FedEx scams, impersonation as government and police officials, etc.
Directions have been issued to the TSPs for blocking of such incoming international spoofed calls. Till 15.11.2024, more than 6.69 lakhs SIM cards and 1,32,000 IMEIs as reported by Police authorities have been blocked by Government of India.
