Centre Blocks Over 100 Websites For Facilitating Organised Illegal Investments

Delhi/Hyderabad, Dec 6 (Maxim News):  The Central government has blocked over 100 websites involved in facilitating organized illegal investments related to economic crimes and task-based part-time job frauds. 

According to an official statement, these websites were being operated by overseas actors and targets were mostly retired employees, women, and unemployed youth looking for part-time jobs.

The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (14C), a wing of the Union Home Ministry, through its vertical National Cybercrime Threat Analytics Unit (NCTAU), had last week identified and recommended that these websites be blocked. 

Following this, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), invoking its power under the Information Technology Act, 2000, has blocked these websites, the statement said. 

These websites, which facilitated task-based organized illegal investment related to economic crimes, were learned to be operated by overseas actors and were using digital advertisement, chat messengers, and mule and rent accounts. 

The proceeds from the large-scale economic frauds were seen to be laundered out of India using card networks, cryptocurrency, overseas ATM withdrawals, and international Fintech companies, the statement said. The 14C is an initiative of the Home Ministry to deal with cyber crimes in the country in a coordinated and comprehensive manner. 

Citizens have been advised to promptly report phone numbers and social media handles used by such fraudsters to the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP), the statement said. 

It said several complaints had been received through the 1930 helpline and the NCRP and these offenses were posing a significant threat to the citizens and also involved data security concerns. 

Citizens should refrain from doing transactions with unknown accounts, as these could be involved in money laundering and even terror financing and lead to the blocking of accounts by police and other legal action, the statement said.  (Maxim News)

---

Next Story:

Now you can get the latest stories from Indtoday on Telegram every day. Click the link to subscribe.  Click to follow Indtoday’s Facebook page, Twitter and Instagram. For all the latest Hyderabad News updates