Delhi highest in per capita cybercrime complaints in '23

With 755 cases registered per 100,000 people in 2023, Delhi had the highest number of cybercrime complaints in the country for any state or Union territory, according to the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (14C) data shared by CEO Rajesh Kumar on Wednesday. Chandigarh has the second-highest rate at 432, followed by Haryana and Telangana at 381 and 261, respectively.

- Aditi Agrawal

The national cybercrime rate is 129 per hundred thousand citizens.

More than 263 banks, e-commerce companies and others have been integrated with the helpline number 1930. Between 2021 and 2023, 1,127 crore belonging to 430,000 victims was recovered. "This system was able to block this money within the financial channels so that increased the chances of recovery," Kumar said. Both the percentage and absolute amount of money recovered have steadily increased.

In 2021, 6.73% of defrauded money, or 236.38 crore, was recovered. In 2022, this increased to 7.35% or 169.04 crore, while in 2023, 12.32% or 921.59 crore were recovered.

Since the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal was launched in August 2019, more than 3.26 million complaints have been reported on it which resulted in 66,000 FIRS.

To combat cybercrime, law enforcement agencies and the department of telecommunications (DoT) started blocking IMEI numbers in 2023 to prevent cyber criminals from accessing the telecom network using their existing devices, Kumar said, adding that 46,229 IMEI numbers, or International Mobile Equipment Identity numbers, were blocked in 2023.