Govt sets up seven joint cyber coordination teams to handle cyber crimes

The Centre has constituted seven joint cyber coordination teams for enhance coordination among different law enforcement agencies dealing with cyber crimes and cyber crime hotspots, Rajya Sabha was informed on Wednesday.

Union Minister of State for Home Bandi Sanjay Kumar also said that the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C), which functions under the Ministry of Home Affairs, has proactively identified and blocked more than 3,962 Skype IDs and 83,668 WhatsApp accounts used for digital arrest.

He said the law enforcement agencies have blocked over 781,000 SIM cards and 2,08,469 IMEIs linked to digital frauds till February 28 this year.

The International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) is a unique number assigned to every phone.

Seven joint cyber coordination teams have been constituted for Mewat, Jamtara, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Vishakhapatnam and Guwahati under I4C covering the whole country based upon cyber crime hotspots/areas having multi jurisdictional issues by on boarding states or Union territories to enhance the coordination framework among the law enforcement agencies of the states or Union territories, Kumar said replying to a written question.

The minister said the Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting and Management System, under I4C, was launched in 2021 for immediate reporting of financial frauds and to stop siphoning off funds by the fraudsters.

So far, financial amount of more than Rs. 4,386 crore has been saved in more than 13.36 lakh complaints.

A toll-free helpline number 1930 has been operationalized to get assistance in lodging online cyber complaints, Kumar said.

He said a suspect registry of identifiers of cyber criminals was launched by I4C on September 10, 2024 in collaboration with banks and financial institutions.

So far, more than 8 lakh suspect records and more than 20 lakh mule accounts have been shared with the participating entities of suspect registry and saved more than Rs. 2889 crore, he said.