The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Wednesday confirmed that more than 100 websites involved in organised investment such as part-time job frauds have been blocked.
The ministry said these websites, which facilitated task-based and organised illegal investment related economic crimes, were learnt to have been operated by overseas actors using digital advertisement, chat messengers and rented accounts.
“It was also learnt that the proceeds from the large-scale economic frauds were seen to be laundered out of India using card network, crypto currency, overseas ATM withdrawals and international Fintech companies. In this regard, several complaints were received through 1930 helpline and NCRP and these offences were posing significant threat to the citizens and involved data security concerns,” the MHA said.
The MHA said the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) was asked to invoke its power under the Information Technology Act, 2000 to block these websites.
News18 on Tuesday exclusively reported about the steps taken by the government targeting Chinese scamsters.
The ministry said Union home minister Amit Shah’s stressed on building a ‘Cyber Safe India’ should be one of the top priorities of the department.
How the Ads Work
These scamsters were using targeted digital advertisements, launched on platforms such as Google and Meta using keywords like ‘ghar baithe job’, ‘ghar baidhe kamai kaise karen’ in several languages from overseas advertisers.
Targets are mostly retired employees, women and unemployed youth looking for part-time jobs.
Upon clicking the advertisement, an agent using WhatsApp or Telegram starts conversation with the potential victim, who convinces her to perform some tasks such as video likes and subscribe and maps rating. The victim is then given some commission. Initially, the ad asked the people to invest to get more returns against the given task.
After gaining the confidence, when the victim deposits a large sum, his money is frozen and the person gets duped.
MHA Advice
The MHA has advised people to exercise due diligence before investing in any such high commission paying online schemes.
If an unknown person contacts you over WhatsApp or Telegram, refrain from performing financial transactions without verification.
Verify the name of receiver mentioned in UPI App. If the receiver is any random person, it may be a mule account and the scheme may be fraudulent. Similarly, check the source from where initial commission is received.
People should refrain from doing transactions with unknown accounts as these could be involved in money laundering and terror financing.
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