Vikash Sharma

The cyber criminals are certainly on prowl in Odisha. This was again evident from the data released by Commissionerate Police which suggests that the cyber criminals were able to loot over Rs 12 crore in the past 12 months in Bhubaneswar alone.

The total fraud amounts to Rs 12.97 crore while the cops have been successful in ensuring a refund of over Rs 1.23 crore during the past one year. The cops were able to reverse and block transactions worth around Rs 2.69 crore.

The cyber police station received 3811 calls pertaining to cyber fraud so far in 2022. Of the total complaints, 3,246 were in connection with financial fraud and 565 were related to various social media issues in the past 12 months.

“This year in 2022, 3811 cases of cyber were reported. Fraud of Rs 12.96 crore was reported and we were able to refund around Rs 1.23. But due to timely intervention, we were able to block transactions worth Rs 2.69 crore,” said Rashmita Jena, IIC Cyber Police Station.

According to Jena, people need to remain cautious and should not click on unverified links as banks and other agencies do not ask for OTP or other credentials over phones. The cyber police station officer further said that credit card related frauds were high in 2022.

The Cyber criminals usually dupe people by threatening them that their credit card will be blocked or ask them to renew as their card would expire soon. Similarly, a person had also lost around Rs 30 lakh over nude phone call by scamsters this year.

According to Jena, the fraud related calls were mostly made by cyber criminals operating from Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal.

(Reported by Alok Mohanty)

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