Chandigarh: Haryana Police has arrested a cybercriminal from Bihar who was pretending to be a foreign relative of the victim and committed a fraud of Rs 3 lakh with a resident of Kurukshetra district.

A police spokesperson informed as soon as the victim realised that he had been cheated, he filed a complaint immediately on the Cyber Crime Portal. The State Cyber Police Station in Panchkula registered a case and started investigating it. During the investigation, the cyber Police arrested the accused who had committed the fraud by posing as a foreign relative.

The spokesperson also said that in this mode of operation, fraudsters call victims randomly and make them believe that they are their foreign relatives who are in trouble and need money to get out of the situation. The victims, scared of the situation, transfer the money to the accounts provided by the fraudsters. This is exactly what happened in this case, where the victim, Hardeep Singh, received a call from a cybercriminal posing as his foreign relative.

The suspect was arrested from Bihar, where he had transferred the money from the victim's account. The investigation revealed that he was a part of a larger cyber fraud network.

“Cybercrime operates on Social Engineering. To stop cybercrime, there is a need for better cyber training and awareness among the public. The state Police is organizing cyber awareness programs in each district. In addition, the State Crime Branch has also released the 2023 Cyber Training Calendar, which starts with providing cybercrime training to every investigative officer in the state,” said Sh. OP Singh, Additional Director General of Police, State Crime Branch, Haryana.

“The increasing awareness among the public can be gauged from the fact that in just the first three months of this year (January to March), approximately 25,000 complaints related to cybercrime were registered, out of which we filed 531 cases and sent 299 cybercriminals behind bars. Our Cyber Helpdesk, which has been operating 24 hours a day since 1930, has saved approximately Rs. 10 crore in just three months by working in collaboration with the district Police," he added.

Haryana Police advises people to be careful and not to trust calls or messages from unknown numbers or any suspect posing as someone they know. /BI/