Cyber fraud repeats as Hyderabad loses ₹331 crore

HYDERABAD: Despite repeated advisories, cyber fraudsters continue to exploit people’s hopes and fears, police say. Promises of high returns trigger greed, while threats of arrest induce panic, making victims act without verification.

People are falling for messages offering unusually high profits on investments, advertisements promising products at throwaway prices, and calls claiming urgent legal trouble. As a result, cyber criminals are repeatedly finding easy targets, even though such frauds have been reported for years.

Police, media warnings fail to change behaviour

Police and broadcast media have been issuing continuous warnings, and governments have been releasing advertisements in newspapers and on television. Yet, there has been little visible improvement in public awareness.

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Fraudsters typically send messages claiming that investments in a particular firm will double within a month. As part of the scam, they initially show inflated “profits” credited to victims’ accounts but do not allow withdrawals. Victims are then persuaded to invest more, after which the entire amount is siphoned off, police said.

Investment fraud tops cybercrime losses

A doctor from Hyderabad recently lost ₹14 crore in one such investment scam. Police data shows that last year alone, victims across categories lost ₹331.47 crore to investment frauds.

Losses under “digital arrest” scams stood at ₹1.34 crore, while several other forms of cyber fraud also continued unabated. Significantly, the major cybercrime categories that caused the highest financial losses were not new, but scams that have been recurring repeatedly.