Challenges for Delhi cyber unit

Cyber fraudsters stashing stolen money in digital currency is posing fresh obstacles for Delhi Police investigators. Delhi Police’s Cyber Crime Unit officials are increasingly exploring cryptocurrency as a means for illegal transactions, creating myriad challenges for investigative agencies.

Experts say cryptocurrency is an encrypted data string that denotes a unit of currency and this digital currency is designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network focusing on key points related to its investigation. As per the senior police officials, there are three ways of scammers dealing in cryptocurrency – running fake call centres, using Chinese apps to dupe people and gift card scams.

Experts stated that the Dark Web is the hidden collective of internet sites only accessible by a specialised web browser. The Dark Web is used for keeping internet activity anonymous and private, which can be helpful in both legal and illegal applications. Dark Web is a major challenge for law enforcement agencies as it is becoming the prime tool for criminals for drug trafficking, gun trafficking and critical financial crimes.

Recently, Police had arrested 87 people in fake call center cases. Senior officials of the cybercrime unit said that in most of these call centers, the accused deal in cryptocurrencies.

It becomes difficult at times as these people have multiple bank accounts, e-wallets, gift cards, where they hide money. Also, with cryptocurrency, linking an account to an individual is a challenge as transactions are anonymous. Most money is sent to offshore accounts in 1-3 days. Once sent, it cannot be recovered,” said a senior police officer from the cybercrime unit.

Cyber fraudsters are taking a new approach to working with their partners overseas while simultaneously hiding a trail of money: cryptocurrency.

Recently, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the Reserve Bank of India wants cryptocurrencies banned in India. The Finance Minister has indicated that India would pounce on global momentum to ban crypto, if regulators around the world got on the same page in defining the sector.

Cryptocurrencies are by definition borderless and require international collaboration to prevent regulatory arbitrage. Therefore, any legislation for regulation or for banning can be effective only after significant international collaboration on evaluation of the risks and benefits and evolution of common taxonomy and standards, the Finance Minister said.