The Centre has blocked 100 websites involved in organised investments and task-based part time job frauds, the Union Home Ministry said on Wednesday (December 6).
“Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C), which is a unit of the Union Home Ministry’s vertical National Cybercrime Threat Analytics Unit (NCTAU) had last week identified and recommended over 100 websites involved in organized investment / task based – part time job frauds. Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), invoking it’s power under the Information Technology Act, 2000, has blocked these websites,” Union Home Ministry said in a statement.
“These websites, which facilitated task based / organized illegal investment related economic crimes, were learnt to being operated by overseas actors and they were using digital advertisement, chat messengers and mule / rented accounts,” it added.
It was also learnt that 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. These frauds, typically, involve following steps:-
1. Targeted digital advertisements are launched on platforms like Google and Meta using key words like ‘Ghar baithe job’, ‘Ghar baithe kamai kaise karen’ etc in multiple languages from overseas advertisers. Targets are mostly retired employees, women and unemployed youth looking for part time jobs.
2. Upon clicking the advertisement, an agent using WhatsApp / Telegram starts conversation with the potential victim, who convinces her to perform some tasks like Video Likes and Subscribe, Maps Rating, etc.
3. Upon completion of task, victim is given some commission, initially and is asked to invest more to get more returns against given task.
4. After gaining confidence, when victim deposits larger sum, deposits are frozen and thus victim is duped.
As a precautionary measure, it is advised to exercise due diligence before investing in any schemes sponsored over the internet.
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