Forged papers, uncooperative banks: Cyber police face hurdles galore

Cops are also launching campaigns through social media and other means to create awareness among people to control cyber crimes

PRAYAGRAJ: Even as the high court has taken a strict stand towards increasing cases of cyber crimes, the cyber police station of Prayagraj Range and cyber cell are leaving no stone unturned in busting gangs and recovering money of fraud victims.

The cyber team faces challenges in tracing fraudsters who are usually based in remote areas of other states and use bank accounts and SIM cards procured through fake documents. Moreover, the uncooperative attitude of bank authorities and network service providers makes their work more challenging and difficult, they say.

It is worth mentioning that in the past few months, teams of cyber police station and cyber cell of Prayagraj police have succeeded in busting many gangs of fraudsters and also managed to recover the lost cash of complainants within 24 hours of the crime. They are also launching campaigns through social media and other means to create awareness among people to control cyber crimes.

SHO, cyber police station inspector Rajeev Tiwari said 35 cases of cyber frauds had been lodged since the police station came into existence, including one case that was transferred from another police station. In four of the cases, charge sheet had been filed in the court while final report had been submitted in one case. Almost all of the lost cash in four charge -sheeted cases had been recovered from the fraudsters and it had also been returned to fraud victims in many other cases of cyber crimes. In total, cash around Rs 45 lakh had been recovered from cyber fraudsters and ggiven back to the complainants, Tiwari added.

A cyber police station official said although the cases of cyber crimes had been increasing, the team had to work with limited resources and often faced challenges due to non-cooperative attitude of banks and network service providers.

“Cyber fraudsters use forged Aadhar cards, PAN cards and other documents for opening bank accounts and obtaining SIM cards. The banks and network service providers carry out OTP based verification instead of conducting physical or manual verification of the documents submitted. As the bank account used by fraudsters is opened on forged documents it becomes difficult to trace them. Moreover, the online fraudsters use fake documents for taking SIM cards which they use for a short period of time. Once the SIM card is thrown away, it becomes a difficult task to trace their location through electronic surveillance and arrest them,” the official shared.

He said that bank officials took too much time in providing details of bank accounts used by cyber fraudsters. On an average, 10 days were taken to trace bank account of a fraudster opened on forged documents and freezing it. In case of cash withdrawn by fraudsters through ATM, banks also took time in providing CCTV footage which gave advantage to the culprits. In some cases footage was lost as banks deleted it after 60 days.

The cyber police had also requested the court to issue guidelines to banks to provide required data to police within 24 to 48 hours of the request, the official added.

Another cyber cell police official said that gangs involved in online frauds usually operated from other states, including Jharkhand, West Bengal, Delhi, Maharashtra and Gujarat and lured bank customers through SMS and social media platforms. While police in Mumbai, Gujarat and some other states were cooperative, cops in Jharkhand and West Bengal were often reluctant in providing necessary help, he said.