Only Umratia
These days the incidents of digital arrest are increasing. Along with the elderly, young people are also victims of this fraud. Millions to crores of rupees are being cheated through digital arrest. Retired elders, bank officers, teachers, IT company employees, government employees etc. the list of victims is very long. Even the top businessmen of the country have become victims of such scams. The matter has now reached not only money, but blackmailing. Recently there was news that a girl from Ahmedabad was stripped of her clothes after being digitally arrested.
Digital Arrest and Modus Operandi Digital arrest means arresting you through a video call. A video call is received on WhatsApp from an unknown number. As soon as you receive the video call, the other person will identify himself as a CBI, ED, Income Tax, Customs or Police officer. You can see the symbol of the department officer who will identify himself on the back wall. He might even be wearing a uniform and an icard to make you believe. That officer will say that you have been booked for such and such crime at such and such a place. Dubai hawala money has been transferred from your bank account, a parcel has arrived in your name at Mumbai airport containing drugs, your daughter's name has come up in a sex racket, your son has been involved in a gang-rape incident. One of these will talk and say that you have been digitally arrested for this crime. It will tell you that you have to stay in front of the video call. If someone talks, they will be arrested immediately and others will make a lot of drama. Sometimes they will ask to transfer money directly, sometimes they will clear the account by downloading an app. In this way, there are examples of collecting crores of rupees by keeping digital arrest for 10-10 days. There is nothing like digital arrest! The important thing is that not only in India but in the whole world there is no provision of this type of law. No country in the world has a term like digital arrest in law, police procedure or judicial investigation. This is a new scam created by cyber crooks to rob people. People are getting caught in this digital arrest net faster than shallow water fish get caught in nets. Then the question is how to avoid this type of fraud?
How to survive? Do not receive video calls from unknown numbers. As mentioned earlier, digital arrest starts with an unknown video call on WhatsApp. After that, it may ask to go to an app like Skype or Telegram, but it will start with WhatsApp video calls. So stay away from unknown video calls.
There is also a risk of blackmailing, there are incidents where no one appears after receiving an unknown video call. Camera is off or dark. By doing this, cyber criminals want to record your face. Then you will get an obscene photo or video of your face on WhatsApp, threatening to go viral and send it to the family, demanding money.
Turn on this feature of WhatsApp WhatsApp has a feature to turn it on… WhatsApp > Settings > Calls > Silence unknown callers. Accordingly, this feature can be turned on or off by going to the settings. After turning on these settings, calls from unknown numbers will be silent, but you will be able to see who called you in notifications and WhatsApp calls. So just turn on this feature now to avoid fraud! Second, inform your family and friends. Especially explain to elders not to receive video calls from strangers.
Image Credit: (Divya-Bhaskar): Images/graphics belong to (Divya-Bhaskar).
