Tag: Delhi police

  • Indian call centre scammers looted $10 billion from Americans in 2021

    Indian call centre scammers looted $10 billion from Americans in 2021

    According to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) data, US citizens lost more than $10 billion in 2022 as a result of phishing calls made by illegal Indian call centres.

    The Times Of India stated citing FBI data that the majority of the victims of these fraud calls from Indian phishing gangs were senior US nationals over the age of 60 who lost more than $3 billion.

    The FBI has now sent a permanent representative to the US embassy in New Delhi following many incidences that were reported in 2022. To bust these gangs that have threatened to make India the hub of such illegal call centres, the representative will work closely with the CBI, Interpol, and the Delhi Police.

    So far in 2022, Americans have lost a total of $10.2 billion to such hoax calls, a 47 per cent increase over the $6.9 billion lost in 2021.

    Suhel Daud, the FBI’s South Asia director, told the publication that “romance-related” scams totaled INR 8,000 crore (PKR 217.7 billion) in 2021 and INR 8,000 crore (PKR 217.7 billion) in the final 11 months of 2022. Losses from “tech support” fraud have topped $3 billion in the last two years, with $347 million in 2021 and $781 million in 2022 so far.

    “It may not be a national security concern yet, but the reputation (of a country) is involved, and we don’t want India to suffer on that count,” Daud told the publication.

    He also stated that the FBI received 850,000 complaints regarding cyber crimes in 2021 and over 780,000 lakh complaints so far in 2022. Investment-related cybercrime ($3 billion), corporate email compromise ($2.4 billion), personal data breach ($1.2 billion), romance ($1 billion), and tech support ($781 million) were among the concerns.

  • Delhi police raid Twitter headquarters for censorship

    Delhi police raid Twitter headquarters for censorship

    Officers in New Delhi from the special cell (the Elite branch that investigates terrorism and organised crime) raided Twitter’s office to serve a warning notice to the head of Twitter.

    This incident took place when Twitter in India labelled a tag of “manipulation” to the tweets of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members in which they accused the opposition party, the Indian National Congress (INC), of falsely accusing PM Narendra Modi of mishandling the COVID-19 pandemic in India.

    BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra tweeted that INC is giving undue favours to journalists affected by the pandemic.

    However, an Indian fact-checking website revealed that the image is fake. In response, INC filed a police complaint against Sambit Patra.

    Twitter spokesperson declined to comment on this matter.

    For months, the Indian government has been pressurising Twitter to censor the content of Indian journalists but Twitter has refused to comply with it. In response, the Indian IT Ministry and politicians have been giving threats to Twitter officials for not toeing the Indian government’s line.
    Recently, the Indian government has revised its policies and added more regulation to control social media.

  • Greta Thunberg’s tweets part of ‘larger conspiracy’: Delhi police file case against Swedish activist

    Greta Thunberg’s tweets part of ‘larger conspiracy’: Delhi police file case against Swedish activist

    A day after Greta Thunberg, a teenage climate change activist hailing from Sweden, came out in support of the Indian farmers along with other celebrities, the New Delhi police have registered an FIR against her for “conspiring against the state of India”.

    According to reports in the Indian media, the global activist was accused of conspiracy for her tweets in support of the farmers who have been protesting against the new agri reforms for the past two months. The government has refused to pay heed to their demands, resulting in an impasse.

    “Greta has been accused of creating disharmony and for being a part of a larger conspiracy. The agenda was exposed after she accidentally shared the propaganda tool kit which included campaign strategy for holding protests across the world over India’s farm laws,” a TimesNow reported claimed.

    Thunberg, and US singer Rihanna created a flutter in India by wading into months-long farmer protests against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s agricultural reforms. Tens of thousands of young and old farmers have blocked roads leading into New Delhi for more than two months, sheltering in tractors from the cold.

    A tractor rally by farmers last week in New Delhi turned violent. Police responded by shutting down the internet, digging ditches, driving nails into roads and topping barricades with razor wire to prevent farmers from entering the capital again.

    “Why aren’t we talking about this?!” Rihanna said in a Twitter post, sharing a CNN article on the demonstrations with her 100.9 million followers on the platform, using the hashtag #FarmersProtest.

    Separately, India has also announced that it would jail Twitter employees for letting journalists tweet about the protesting farmers in India.

    INDIA INCENSED BY TWEETS:

    The international celebrity tweets triggered an online storm in India, where the farmers’ protests have become one of the biggest challenges to Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi since he took power in 2014. Modi has asserted the laws are necessary to modernise India’s agriculture sector, but farmers fear they would be placed at the mercy of big corporations.

    India’s government has bristled at international remarks on the protests, calling them an “internal matter”.

    In an official statement, the foreign ministry said that the celebrities needed “a proper understanding of the issues”.

    “The temptation of sensationalist social media hashtags and comments, especially when resorted to by celebrities and others, is neither accurate nor responsible,” read the statement, with the hashtags #IndiaTogether and #IndiaAgainstPropaganda.”