A man impersonating an aide of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has been arrested in Dehradun for allegedly swindling crores of rupees from ticket-seekers in multiple states.
The number of digital financial frauds rose more than four times in FY24 year-on-year to comprise 80 per cent of all financial frauds.
The overall number of frauds, including those related to loan accounts and digital payments, jumped by three times in FY25, primarily due to reclassification of 122 cases as per a Supreme Court order, the Reserve Bank said on Thursday. The fraud value jumped to Rs 36,014 crore in FY25, up from Rs 12,230 crore in the previous fiscal year, while the number of fraud cases went down to 23,953 in FY25 from 36,060 in FY24.
The Economic Offences Wing of Crime Branch in Kashmir conducted searches at multiple locations in Srinagar and Budgam districts concerning the alleged siphoning of government funds during the COVID-19 pandemic.
To check digital frauds, the government has disconnected 70 lakh mobile numbers so far involved in cybercrime or financial frauds, Financial Services Secretary Vivek Joshi said on Tuesday. Emerging from a meeting to discuss issues related to financial cyber security and increasing digital payment fraud, Joshi, who chaired the meeting, said banks have been asked to strengthen the system and processes in this regard. More such meetings would take place, he said, adding the next meeting is scheduled in January.
Senior citizens are particularly vulnerable due to their high savings, trust in authorities, and limited familiarity with online frauds.
The CBI has filed a chargesheet against 17 people, including four Chinese nationals, and 58 companies for their alleged roles in a transnational cyber fraud network that siphoned off over Rs 1,000 crore.
A 40-year-old woman has been arrested in Delhi for allegedly defrauding a resident of Rs 20,000 under the guise of arranging a loan through social media. The accused, Satvinder Kaur, was apprehended after a technical investigation revealed her involvement in the scam.
This marks a 67% increase from the Rs 2,537 crore lost in scams in 2022-2023.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested Ayush Varshney, co-founder of Darwin Labs, in connection with the 200 million Gain Bitcoin cryptocurrency scam. Varshney was apprehended while attempting to flee the country.
Risk assessment platforms are increasingly using diverse data sources to help lenders identify groups attempting to access credit from regulated entities and to improve the process of evaluating new-to-credit (NTC) users.
Sebi Chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey announced intensified surveillance and technology-driven enforcement to combat pre-investment scams targeting retail investors, who are increasingly being lured by fake trading apps and promises of high returns.
Cyber fraudsters have duped Delhi residents of nearly Rs 1,000 crore so far this year, with investment scams, digital arrests and boss scams emerging as the most common cybercrimes.
A bill to repeal the MGNREGA and introduce a new rural employment law, the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin), has been circulated among Lok Sabha members.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday asked fintech startups to come out with solutions to deal with the rising incidence of digital arrests, cheating by fly-by-night operators, and other kinds of cyber frauds. Speaking at the Digital Payments Awards 2025 ceremony here, the minister credited fintechs with helping speed up financial inclusion and taking the payment system to even the far-flung areas of the country.
The number of cyberfraud cases has skyrocketed from 2,677 in 1999-2000 to 29,082 in FY24 -- more than a 10-fold increase. The RBI pegs digital payment frauds at Rs 1,457 crore in FY24, up more than five times in a year. It's not just the number of frauds. What's alarming is the growing sophistication of the fraudsters, exposing the vulnerabilities within the financial system, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
UPI has catapulted India into the forefront on the global digital payments landscape. Working hand in hand, the AePS payments system is making life easy for rural folks, notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
UPI-related frauds have accounted for a cumulative loss of Rs 2,145 crore across 2.7 million reported incidents.
Airtel has informed the government and regulator Trai that it has approached Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea with a proposal for a joint initiative to unite the industry against rising telecom fraud and scams.
The number of frauds in the banking sector increased over four times in the past five years to 36,075.
App-based communication services providers and Indian telcos are at loggerheads over the SIM-binding directions issued by the department of telecom, which are to be complied with by the end of February 2026.
Trai has ordered BFSI firms to move service and transaction calls to the 1600 series from 2026 to reduce spam, financial fraud, and rising digital arrest scams.
State-owned banks have received guidance from the government to close Jan Dhan accounts whose beneficiaries are unwilling to keep them active, amid rising instances of such accounts being misused by fraudsters as mule accounts to defraud people, people aware of the development said.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday asked fintech firms to focus on risk management at a time when criminals are using AI to mimic voices, clone identities and create lifelike videos to manipulate people.
...benefiting 350,000 persons. Also, Trai detected and blocked seven million mobile phone connections involved in cyber fraud and suspicious activities.
Targets should avoid panicking and hang up. 'Disconnecting stops the scammers from building psychological pressure.'
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das said on Friday said the central bank has developed an innovative artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) based model MuleHunter.ai to address the growing issue of mule bank accounts that are often used for committing financial fraud. Developed by the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub, the new initiative is piloted with two public sector banks.
Mastercard recently launched an authentication product called Identity Check Express that enables customers to verify transactions on their own.
Gujarat police arrest a woman allegedly involved in trafficking job aspirants to Myanmar and Thailand for cyber slavery. The accused lured people with promises of high-paying jobs and forced them to work for international cyber crime syndicates.
Former IPS officer Amar Singh Chahal allegedly shot himself after claiming he was duped of Rs 8.10 crore by cyber thugs. He was one of the accused in the 2015 police firing cases related to anti-sacrilege protests in Faridkot.
While UIDAI has given a nod for face authentication, banks need to join the process.
Reserve Bank Governor Sanjay Malhotra on Wednesday exhorted the fledgling fintech ecosystem to focus on the underserved sections of the society to deepen financial inclusion. Speaking at the annual Global Fintech Fest in Mumbai, Malhotra accepted that serving the "privileged" will be a lucrative business, but urged the smaller companies to focus on the underserved.
The Reserve Bank on Thursday affirmed its commitment to continue with its supervisory measures aimed at early identification of risks and vulnerabilities. The central bank would also focus on enhancing cyber resilience and capabilities of Supervised Entities (SEs) by implementing the recommendations of the inter-regulatory Working Group, which has uniform baseline cybersecurity guidelines for financial entities, it said in its annual report.
As part of its efforts to strengthen customer protection, Reserve Bank is considering setting up a fraud registry to create a database of fraudulent websites, phones and various modus operandi used for digital fraud. Such a database will help prevent these fraudsters from repeating the fraud as the websites or phone numbers would be blacklisted, RBI executive director Anil Kumar Sharma said on Monday. "There is no definite timeline for setting up of the fraud registry.
'Instead of the government and telecom operators solving the mess of their own creation, they're telling us we need to give access to our phones perpetually.'
'Other sectors that manage the savings pools of Indians are giving tough competition to life insurance companies.'
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday launched the foreign currency settlement system in GIFT IFSC, which will facilitate seamless transactions on real-time basis, enhance liquidity management, and ensure compliance.
Fraudsters lure individuals with false promises of recovering bonuses or maturity proceeds from lapsed policies.
'Reinvention is not a hugely difficult task. With technology as available today, you can reinvent yourself pretty quickly.'
The Indian government has introduced a bill in the Lok Sabha to ban online games played with money, aiming to curb addiction, money laundering, and financial fraud. The bill also targets advertisements and financial transactions related to such games.
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