Reference News Network, October 16 report - According to the Bloomberg News website on October 13, last August on a humid morning, Birendra Yadav was alone at his home in Gurgaon, a suburb of New Delhi, when the phone suddenly rang. The caller was a woman who introduced herself as a staff member of the Indian Telecommunications Authority. She seemed to know everything about this 77-year-old former Indian Air Force officer, accurately stating his address, ID number, and tax account number. "A mobile phone under your name is sending information that threatens the country," the caller said, "unless the cyber police can prove your innocence, we can only freeze all your mobile numbers."

This was the beginning of Yadav's encounter with the "digital arrest" scam. It is a meticulously designed fraud targeting wealthy people in India, not a small-scale operation for a little money. Last August, a former banker claimed he had been scammed out of 230 million rupees (about 2.6 million US dollars). According to data from the Indian government, the cumulative losses caused by such scams have reached 25.8 billion rupees since 2022.

If judged by global trends, the actual situation may be much more severe.

A survey by the Hague-based non-profit organization "Global Anti-Fraud Alliance" found that only 28% of financial fraud victims report to law enforcement agencies, while one in five victims have never even tried to recover the money. The reason is simple: those who attempt to recover their losses almost always fail.

Using online intimidation

The soaring youth unemployment rate, widespread corruption, and obvious wealth inequality in India have created a fertile ground for "digital arrest" scams. The harm caused by the rampant fraud is deep and extensive: for victims, it not only means property loss, but also psychological trauma that is difficult to heal. Moreover, with factors such as artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies being added, the already serious situation may further deteriorate.

According to the Global Anti-Fraud Alliance, fraud has become a global industry with an annual scale reaching trillions of dollars. Unlike common "shopping frauds" or "pig-butchering schemes," the perpetrators of "digital arrests" launch a "thunderous strike" right from the start - making vulnerable individuals feel the strong pressure from law enforcement. Scammers do not directly ask for money, but instead require victims to "prove their innocence." Victims, under great fear and psychological shock, will voluntarily transfer large sums of money through legitimate banking channels to the scammers.

Criminals hide in secret networks, and this decentralized operational model makes them difficult to locate and combat, especially when the criminal groups are controlled from abroad. A report by the Indian news website Scroll found that thousands of Indian youths have been lured to Southeast Asia and forced to participate in fraud activities. As a previous article from Bloomberg News stated, Asia is suffering from a "fraud epidemic."

Lagging responses

Several hours after falling victim to the "digital arrest" scam, Yadav agreed to be "interrogated" via a video chat software by a so-called junior official from the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation. Subsequently, Yadav was asked to speak with a "senior official," who would decide his fate.

The person playing the "senior official" sat behind a large desk, wearing a full uniform, with the Indian national emblem hanging on the wall behind him. He kept giving various orders, with people coming and going to deliver documents. He even knew the exact amount of Yadav's savings, down to the last rupee. "He shouted at me and threatened to seize my children's property. At that moment, I was completely panicked," Yadav recalled.

On that day and the next, the scammers assigned to "handle the case" instructed Yadav to visit four banks and transfer his life savings into a government-approved account for "verification." Each time he transferred, he received transfer instructions over a voice call in front of the bank teller.

Looking back now, Yadav still feels bitter: "Was it our bank's negligence, or were they involved from the start?" In the end, Yadav lost 15.95 million rupees.

The police are still struggling to find effective ways to deal with such scams, and the banks are indifferent to their responsibility in preventing fraud. Even though the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal of India has issued a ban, some banks still allow such transfers. When courts issue orders to cancel fraudulent transactions, banks often refuse. This slow response gives criminals enough time to withdraw the stolen money and convert it into cryptocurrency, transferring it overseas.

How to treat the problem?

To make the "digital arrest" scam ineffective, it is necessary to tackle its two key success factors - psychological manipulation and technical vulnerabilities.

When some people suddenly face threats, they experience an often-overlooked stress reaction: their personal action system "crashes." An advertising executive who was threatened for five days said at the time that his "rational thinking completely stopped."

A simple intervention can help victims think again. For example, the Indian Telecommunications Authority could require all operators to set up a reminder: when the call duration reaches the threshold required for the "digital arrest" scam, an alert automatically pops up.

Indian banking regulatory authorities should also learn from foreign experiences in combating financial crimes. Last year, Singapore introduced a "shared responsibility" guideline for fraud transactions: if payment institutions find that a customer's account balance has been transferred by more than 50% within 24 hours, they must block it; telecom service providers must use anti-fraud filters to block mass messages containing suspicious words; companies that do not comply with the regulations must fully compensate customers for their losses. (Translation/Julie)

Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7561664610320597538/

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