The recent cracking of a Nigerian racket by Cyberabad police shows how personal data collected by frauds is sold in bulk. Often Darknet In one of touted as can only be the biggest the internet’s accessed drug hauls using onion in the city, alter ego, rout

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me. When I probed, they said, ‘Malls do this for publicity and to build patronage. You will get a dinner set and some shopping vouchers. You don’t have to spend a single rupee.’”

On probing further, he realised that the number from which they had received the call was marked as spam by several users. He realised they would eventually have been reeled onto some scheme and made to pay a hefty amount.

Last June, the Cyber Crime Police of Hyderabad nabbed a gang of three from Okhla Industrial Area for looting money from innocent people with the lure of fake offers and prize money. One person was made to shell out a whopping `88 lakh. The person said he received a call from one Rahil Kapoor Shop Cherries Marketing Pvt Ltd, offering gift items like a laptop and cell phone and a trip to Turkey for two persons for an amount of `2.5 lakh, after he gave out his number unmindfully at a shopping centre.

“Any details you share with these frauds can compromise your personal and financial information,” said an official from Cyber Crimes Hyderabad. “Moreover, payments once made to these accounts cannot be retrieved or reversed, and you may be cheated of your hard-earned money.” He also asked netizens not to fall for phone calls advertising gifts and offers and to report such calls to the Inter-state scamsters from North India are learning Telugu to con gullible people in the city, sources in the Commissioner’s Task Force said. Cyber crimes have increased manifold in all three commissionerates in the past years and the police is requesting the public to be cautious before accepting offers or deals.

Cyber Station action.

Crime Police for necessary