Cybercrime On Rise: Four Women Among Five Held For Fraud In Berhampur

Berhampur: A cyber fraud racket was busted here on Friday with the arrest five persons, including four girls. They allegedly duped people of lakhs of rupees online.

On the basis of a complaint lodged by Deepak Panda, a special team of Berhampur Cyber Police arrested three accused from Kendrapara and one each from Sambalpur and Puri.

Panda had alleged that he was duped by the gang of Rs 1 lakh on promise of a lucrative return of Rs 5 lakh. However, he was not the only one. Investigation revealed that around 2000 people across Odisha were victims of the cyber fraud racket.

“Cases involving online fraud is being registered in each and every police station these days.We are trying our best to make people aware about online transactions through community policing, SMS, social media engagement, and other campaigns,” said SP (Berhampur) Pinak Mishra.

2018 saw a rise of 5 per cent in cybercrime compared to the previous year. A total of 867 such cases were registered in 2018 as against 824 in 2017, the Crime Branch’s statistics revealed.

These cases pertains to online banking fraud and circulation of vulgar pictures of girls on social media. Cyber offences had shot up by a disturbing 159 per cent in 2017 with 824 cases being registered as against 317 in 2016.

According to additional director general of police (Crime Branch) Santosh Upadhyay, cybercrime continues to be a challenging area. He attributed it to internet explosion, unchecked use of social media and a proper mechanism to prevent such offence.

“Our sustained efforts on public sensitization programmes and and awareness campaigns paid off to a great extent,” he told a national daily.

In January, DGP Dr RP Sharma  had released a booklet containing guidelines and advisories for creating public awareness on various cyber crime and frauds.