Despite the numerous awareness drives, cyber criminals have siphoned off over Rs 1.39 crore from people in capital city Bhubaneswar in February.
The Bhubaneswar Urban Police District (UPD) Cyber Cell received a total of 254 complaints from the capital city and managed to recover only Rs 23. 26 lakh of the lost amount.
Out of the total recovered amount, Rs 10.53 lakh has been already refunded to the victim and the rest, Rs 12.73 lakh have been blocked by the police. This amount would be refunded to the victims after due completion of verification process.
The criminals duped the gullible victims through both UPI and credit or debit card frauds.
Out of the total 254 complaints received by the cyber cell, 94 complaints were related to UPI frauds, 97 were related to credit card and debit card frauds.
63 complaints were categorised as ‘Others’ by the police and no specification was provided about the nature of these complaints.
The police have registered six cases in connection with the frauds and 64 phone numbers have been blocked.
Recently, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) tried to create awareness among people to adopt safe digital banking practices by taking all due precautions while carrying out any digital (online , mobile) banking or payment transactions.