Bhubaneswar: It seems that efforts by the banks as well as police to raise public awareness regarding cyber crime have failed to yield any results. This is because people continue to lose their hard-earned money to cyber frauds. As per the data for the month of January released Tuesday by the Commissionerate Police, cyber criminals succeeded in siphoning off twice the amount duped in December, 2021.
The fraudsters duped people in the Capital city of more than Rs 1.31 crore in January, 2022. It is more than double the amount stolen in December 2021 which stood at Rs 60.59 lakh. A total of 331 victims contacted the cyber crime help desk in January this year as against 213 in December, 2021.
A total of 192 persons were duped through UPI fraud while the fraudsters cheated 102 by using credit and debit card details of the gullible victims.
The cops blocked or got refunded Rs 19,72,226 out of the total amount withdrawn by the criminals in December, 2021. However, the City police managed to recover only Rs 9.47 lakh and block Rs 3.17 lakh out of the total money duped in January this year. A total of 44 mobile numbers have been blocked by the cops through the cyber safe portal in January.