Hyderabad, March 12 (UNI) Cyber Crime Police Station (CCPS), Hyderabad registered 78 FIRs in February and arrested 117 suspects from 16 states during a special drive 'Operation Octopus', police said.
A police statement on Thursday said the arrests were made in connection with 74 cybercrime cases. The detected cases included 63 trading and investment frauds, six digital arrest frauds, four OTP frauds and one social media-related fraud. Police also managed to refund Rs 34.76 lakh to victims.
Investigations revealed that the arrested individuals were involved in 1,081 cybercrime cases across India and their bank accounts had transactions amounting to nearly Rs 139 crore.
During the operations, police seized cash worth Rs 36 lakh, 221 mobile phones, 26 laptops, 115 cheque books, 141 SIM cards, 54 debit cards, 56 shell stamps, one cash-counting machine, 152 passbooks, five trade licences, six audit reports and three ledgers.
Meanwhile, Zonal Cyber Cells received 2,963 petitions through the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP) during February, out of which 461 FIRs were registered. Eleven persons involved in nine cases were arrested and Rs 24.10 lakh was refunded to victims.
As part of cyber patrol, police identified 124 Facebook and Instagram profiles running 539 paid advertisements promoting online gaming and betting applications targeting Indian users. All the profiles were reported and taken down, while efforts are underway to trace the operators.
Under the C-MITRA initiative, police made 2,396 calls to victims to assist and registered 257 Zero FIRs based on complaints received.
In one key case, a Hyderabad resident lost Rs 11.17 lakh in a matrimonial investment fraud. Police arrested Pedapudi Prasanna Kumar from Visakhapatnam at Chennai Airport after he returned from Cambodia.
In another case, three persons from Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Hyderabad were arrested in connection with a cryptocurrency fraud involving about Rs 91.54 lakh.
UNI VV PRS