Explained: How 15,000 Indians were conned out of Rs 712 crore in cyber fraud  

Everyone knows that cybercrime is on the rise. And yet, cybercriminals seem to find new ways to scam people out of their hard-earned money. The Hyderabad Police recently busted a Chinese-run scheme that defrauded over 15,000 Indians including some highly-paid software professionals out of Rs 712 crore. Let’s take a closer look at what happened and how the police cracked the case: What happened? As per NDTV, the Hyderabad Police’s cybercrime branch began looking into the case in April after a complaint from a victim named Shiva. Police found that the criminals enticed people on WhatsApp and Telegram by offering ‘investment-cum-part time jobs’. Victims, who lost Rs 5 lakh to Rs 6 lakh on average, were given tasks such as liking YouTube videos and writing Google reviews – and were “paid” on completing them. A fake window showed the money they had purportedly earned, but they were not allowed to withdraw it – until all the so-called tasks had been completed. The victims were then asked to front up small amounts of money – up to Rs 5,000 – and then given “high returns”. In some instances, their money was even shown as “having doubled” The victims were then tasked with putting in more and more money.

By now, victims had already put in lakhs of rupees, as per NDTV.

Shiva, for example, was tasked with giving five-star ratings and investing small amounts of Rs 1,000 – on which he was shown earning a ‘profit’ of Rs 866. Shiva, after putting in Rs 25,000, was shown to have a ‘profit’ of Rs 25,000. But he was still not allowed to withdraw the money. Shiva kept investing more and more – until he lost Rs 28 lakh. What did police find? Shiva’s money was initially transferred to six accounts. From there, it was sent to various Indian bank accounts – before it landed up in Dubai. The money was then used to purchase crypto. “The accounts, which were opened in India using Indian SIM cards, were subsequently remotely operated in Dubai. The fraudsters were in touch with Chinese operators, who are the masterminds of the scam,” a police officer told NDTV. [caption id=“attachment_12863522” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Representational image.[/caption] “We are alerting Central agencies regarding this and the cyber crime unit of the Union home ministry has been given the details. It is quite shocking and surprising that even highly paid software professionals have lost as much as ₹ 82 lakh,” Hyderabad Police Commissioner CV Anand told NDTV.

The police have arrested nine people in this connection from all over India.

Some of the cryptowallet transactions in the fraud were found to have linkages with Hezbollah wallet. A resident of Ahmedabad, one of the arrested persons, was found to be associated with some Chinese citizens. He coordinates with them by sharing information on Indian bank accounts and shares the OTPs for operating these accounts from Dubai/China through remote access apps, the police said. It was also found that one of the arrested persons has shared over 65 accounts to Chinese citizens in which transactions to an amount of Rs 128 crore took place. According to NDTV, the Chinese masterminds of the scheme – Kevin Jun, Lee Lou Langzhou and Shasha – used these accounts to transfer over Rs 128 crore. The other accounts through which the fraudulent money have been converted to United States Department of Treasury (USDT crypto currency) is valued at Rs 584 crore, totalling over Rs 712 crore has been siphoned off by the fraudsters, police said. Indians vulnerable to cybercrime Indians are vulnerable to cybercrime in particular deepfake scams. CNBC in May quoted a McAfee survey as noting that nearly two-thirds of respondents cannot distinguish between a real voice and an AI voice. “The survey reveals that more than half (69 percent) of Indians think they don’t know or cannot tell the difference between an AI voice and real voice,” the report stated.

Worse, 83 per cent of victims admitted to losing money in such scams.

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“About half (47 percent) of Indian adults have experienced or know someone who has experienced some kind of AI voice scam, which is almost double the global average (25 percent). 83 percent of Indian victims said they had a loss of money- with 48 percent losing over Rs 50,000,” the report stated. The report noted that Indians are also likely to fall for such scams. “Particularly if they thought the request had come from their parent (46 percent), partner or spouse (34 percent), or child (12 percent). Messages most likely to elicit a response were those claiming that the sender had been robbed (70 percent), was involved in a car incident (69 percent), lost their phone or wallet (65 percent) or needed help while travelling abroad (62 percent),” the report stated. With inputs from agencies