In the past seven and a half years, the Yogi Adityanath government has implemented significant measures to combat cyber crime and protect the hard-earned money of the state’s residents.

Key initiatives include the establishment of 18 regional cyber crime police stations, digital forensic labs, and cyber help desks in every police station across the state.

On Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s directives, the Special Task Force (STF) has taken decisive action against cyber criminals, resulting in the arrest of 379 individuals linked to various cyber crime activities. Notably, the STF apprehended a gang of 16 cyber criminals responsible for defrauding an associate professor of the Sanjay Gandhi Post-graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow of approximately Rs 2 crore. These arrests were made in Lucknow and Gautam Buddha Nagar.

Notably, the deployment of the UP STF to dismantle major cyber crime networks and gangs is among the key initiatives of the state government. As a result of these efforts, Uttar Pradesh has seen a significant decline in cyber crime cases over the past seven and a half years.

Following Chief Minister Yogi’s directives, the UP STF has launched an ongoing campaign to apprehend cyber criminals. This initiative has led to the exposure of numerous gangs engaged in fraudulent activities, including creating cloned cheques, operating fake telecalling centres and running bogus insurance schemes.

In total, the STF has arrested 379 cyber criminals during this period and recovered a substantial cache of equipment, including computers, laptops, walkie-talkies, mobile phones, SIM cards and cash. The STF dismantled one of the largest online fraud gangs in the state, arresting 105 members and seizing approximately 2,00,000 data points from major companies such as Reliance Future, Exide, Birla Sun Life, Max Life, PNB Met Life, HDFC Agro, Paytm Online Shopping, Shyclues, and Flipkart, which were used to facilitate their fraudulent operations.

STF Deputy Superintendent of Police Deepak Singh announced that a comprehensive campaign is underway across Uttar Pradesh to apprehend cyber criminals. Over the past seven and a half years, this initiative has led to the arrest of a significant number of offenders, with Gautam Buddha Nagar, Lucknow and Ghaziabad being the hotspots for these operations.

In Gautam Buddha Nagar alone, 225 major cyber criminals have been apprehended, followed by 116 in Lucknow and nine in Ghaziabad. The campaign has also resulted in the arrests of five cyber fraudsters each from Prayagraj, Agra, and Delhi, as well as one criminal each from Pratapgarh, Jaunpur and Kanpur Nagar. Additionally, four cyber criminals were nabbed in Fatehpur and Gorakhpur, and three others were arrested in Rajasthan.

The STF has also uncovered multiple fraud cases linked to a cyber thug from Bihar, who was brought to Uttar Pradesh on transit remand in connection with an online fraud case in Varanasi.