Decentralisation of cyber crime wing pays off

It was on September 9 that Akshaya, an 18-year-old college student of Choolaimedu, transferred Rs 1,000 to his friend on GPay. While the amount got deducted from his account, his friend did not get it. However, within minutes, he received a call and the person speaking “on behalf of GPay” offered to resolve the problem and asked him to share the OTP he receives on his phone. He did so but did not get any call back from the person. A few hours later, he found that Rs 9,849 had been withdrawn from his account. He immediately approached police and was asked to get in touch with the cyber cell of Triplicane district. Now, he has got the money back in his account.

“The police were kind and listened to my grievance patiently. They assured me that they would try their best to retrieve my money,” said Akshay.

Anna Salai Inspector Chandramohan said they were able to stall the transaction the same day since the victim approached them within 24 hours, though it took over a week for him to get the money back.

Similarly, a man in Ambattur received the money he lost to OTP fraudsters.

That is how the cyber cells work in all 12 police districts in Greater Chennai Police.

“Decentralisation of the cyber crime wing has reaped benefits as the victims can now approach their nearest police station against the old practice of complaining at the cyber crime wing of the Central Crime Branch,” said Deputy Commissioner Hari Kiran Prasad of T Nagar police district. The cyber cell in T Nagar district has received 100 complaints of various nature and managed to retrieve about Rs 1 lakh in connection with monetary frauds.

In each district, a four-member team work round the clock to listen to cyber-related grievances and complaints have started pouring in at all the cyber cells with every passing day. Mylapore Deputy Commissioner Shashank Sai broadly categorises the complaints they have received so far into four — debit card fraud, OTP fraud, OLX fraud and customer care fraud. “We have been able to retrieve Rs 1.5 lakh using the chargeback option,” said the official.

While OTP and OLX frauds are no longer new, dialling customer care numbers shown on Google Search is the new kind of fraud. In T Nagar, a juvenile boy sent money to his friend using his sister’s phone. Since the money did not get delivered, he looked for the Customer Care number and lost a couple of thousands as the boy kept sharing the OTP number to the fraudster using the fake customer care number.

Apart from monetary frauds, cyber cells are also flooded with personal complaints related to social media. It may be recalled that Kumaran Nagar police arrested a juvenile for sharing ex-girlfriend’s mother’s contact number on Instagram with obscene comments. In Tiruverkadu too, a 19-year-old was arrested for a similar offence.

Adyar Deputy Commissioner V Vikraman said that it was city police Commissioner Mahesh Kumar Aggarwal’s idea to have cyber cells in all police districts as most of the complaints could be handled at the station itself. The Central Crime Branch has devised a standard operating procedure for different kind of cyber offences and the police personnel of each cyber cell have been trained to go about it.

“They are doing a great job. We have been in touch with managers of all the banks in our jurisdiction and alert them as soon as we get a complaint over the phone to stop the fraudulent transaction, apart from mailing the e-commerce firms or intermediary to return the sum. It is not as easy as it sounds,” said Vikraman. With experience, the cyber cells would excel in cracking different kinds of crimes, added the official.