Digital arrest scams: Centre tells SC it has formed multi-agency panel to tackle problem

The Union government has informed the Supreme Court that it has constituted a high-level inter-departmental committee to “comprehensively examine all facets” of digital arrests in the country, The Indian Express reported on Tuesday.

The inter-departmental panel is headed by the special secretary (internal security) of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.

The committee has held three meetings of which the latest on January 6 was attended by representatives of online intermediary platforms such as Google, WhatsApp, Telegram and Microsoft.

While the first meeting was held in December, a second virtual discussion was held on January 2. It was attended by representatives of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, the Reserve Bank of India, the Department of Telecommunications and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, the newspaper reported.

The Supreme Court was informed about the committee in a status report ahead of a hearing scheduled on Tuesday.

The multi-agency committee was formed after a bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant on December 1 directed the Central Bureau of Investigation to crack down on “digital arrest” scammers, The Hindu reported.

In cases of “digital arrest”, criminals usually orchestrate the fraud by posing as law enforcement officers, often wearing uniforms and making video calls to victims from locations made to resemble government offices or police stations. They demand money for a “compromise” and “closure of a case” against the victims.

In some cases, the victims are “digitally arrested” with the scamsters claiming that the persons are required to be visible until their demands are met.

The court had on December 1 also extended a “free hand” to the agency to launch an anti-corruption investigation into bankers involved in the opening of mule accounts linked to cyber crimes.

The bench had expressed shock at the “staggering amounts” digital arrest scammers have been able to siphon off from India.

In its status report, the Union government said that the committee would convene at regular intervals to “ensure time-bound and coordinated compliance”.

The government sought at least a month’s time to obtain inputs from the remaining members of the committee, hold further meetings and come up with a “consolidated and considered outcome” before the court.

The Union home ministry told Parliament in December that the National Crime Records Bureau compiles statistics about crimes, and it has not maintained specific data relating to digital arrest scams.

The ministry had said in March 2025 that Indians had lost Rs 2,576 crore to “digital arrest scams and related cybercrimes” between 2022 and February 2025.

The Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre had found that 46% of the cyber frauds reported between January 2024 and April 2024 originated in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, The Indian Express reported in October 2024.

In January 2025, Scroll published a series of extensive reports about Chinese crime syndicates that run cyber crime centres from Southeast Asia, mainly Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos. These highly sophisticated “scam compounds” are staffed with thousands of people, many of them from India, who are lured with fake job offers and then forced to work on scamming people back home.

Also read:

• My father lost Rs 10 lakh in a digital arrest scam. Here’s how he got some money back
• ‘Felt like I was under hypnosis’: How digital arrest scams dupe Indians of their hard-earned money