Nagpur is target of 100-150 cyber fraud cases everyday: Adv Limaye

 

 

Oftentimes, one reads about a person losing his or her hard-earned money to cyber fraudsters. Nagpur is no exception to this. In fact, Nagpur is target of 100-150 cyber fraud cases everyday, said Adv Mahendra Limaye, renowned cyber legal expert. In an interview to ‘The Hitavada’, Adv Limaye said that the situation was very scary when one thought of the number of cyber fraud cases in Maharashtra and in India. He advised people to be aware and watchful about their money. Because, he added, those who want money of the people are watching them. Citizens are losing their hard-earned money very swiftly via a phone call or a WhatsApp link. Who takes this money? Where does it go? Will one ever get it back? ‘The Hitavada’ posed these and other questions to Adv Mahendra Limaye, and he gave a simple advice to people -- “Think before you act.” According to him, “Not every call from an unknown number needs to be answered. Not every WhatsApp link is supposed to be clicked.

 

The traffic signal formula must be applied to online responses and transactions -- Stop, Think, and then Act,” he said. The era of digitalisation is here. Everything one needs in one’s life will fit inside the 6-inch smartphone. Maps, news, television, food, movies, payments... the list goes on. But is this too much? In one case that Adv Limaye fought, a woman aged around 55-60 years lost big sums of money from her bank account to a fraudster but no one from the bank batted an eyelid. According to him, there were no triggers, no one monitored the transactions when they happened, no calls were made to the woman asking why these huge transactions were taking place from her account. “This is the situation on one hand, and on the other, one gets frequent calls from the banks asking if they want a loan,” he rued. If Adv Limaye is to be believed, there seem to be flaws in the banking system. The scammers use the flaws to their advantage and rarely get caught.

 

This is a huge web that seems to be endless and no one ever gets to the bottom of it. “The fraudsters, after scamming a person, divert the money to four/five other accounts before converting it into cryptocurrency, which is difficult to trace. They do all this sitting in a call centre in Cambodia, Bangkok, or some other remote locations,” he explained. It took around six years to bring back the money lost by one of his clients, and the punishment was merely a sentence of a few years. The scammers look for easy targets and a person aged above 50-55 years seems to be a perfect target. Pornography seems to be a common scheme for these scammers.

 

They just track the IP address of the person watching such content and then send them an e-mail, message, or a call coercing them into feeling guilty for watching porn in privacy. According to Adv Limaye, the scammers start pulling these targets into their web of lies and illusions by sending them photos of themselves, or a video of a girl who passed away and start blaming them. “Feeling guilty and afraid of getting exposed, they keep quiet and don’t tell anyone about this. The victims then quietly keep feeding the scammers whatever they ask for. Sometimes, victims even go broke and depressed to the extent of resorting to some very sad things,” he elaborated. Unfortunately, awareness drives about cybersecurity are still not being conducted in the Old Age Homes to save elders from falling prey to the cyber fraudsters. Also needed is an online campaign targeted to make people above 50-55 years of age aware about this. “We cant just give up on these people,” said Adv Limaye.

 

Asked about the response of the cyber-crime units of enforcement agencies, the cyber legal expert said that those were understaffed to handle all these complaints coming up everyday. “If the situation continues to be so, we are heading towards a big menace, which is coming our way whether we like it or not,” Adv Limaye said. According to him, awareness holds the key and the Government also needs to put in place a more robust mechanism to combat cyber frauds. “We are at the mercy of scammers. If they did not call you today, may be, tomorrow is your day,” he cautioned before signing off.