On-line frauds have becomea big challenge with the Statewitnessing a sharp rise in such cases while matching action on part of Maharashtra Police is not much enthusing. In fact there is steady decline in detection rate over the years.

A total of 1,810 on-line frauds were reported in year 2018 with just 12.04 per cent detection rate as compared to 1,520 on-line frauds registered in year 2015 with 30.78 per cent detection rate. In year 2016, a total of 1,667 on-line frauds were registered. Of them, the police managed to detect 469 cases with 28.17 per cent detection rate. The State witnessed massive surge in cyber frauds in year 2017 by registering whopping 2,722 cases. However, just 482 cases with 17.70 per cent detection rate were solved by the police. The statistics indicates that number of on-line frauds are increasing while the detection rate is declining which shows the need for pulling up the socks by the Khaki.

 

The on-line frauds includes credit/debit card frauds, job frauds, investment frauds and on-line banking frauds. Share of credit/debit card frauds is maximum among all these frauds. However, detection rate in credit/debit card frauds is below 10 per cent over the years.

 

In year 2015, the State police solved only 58 credit/debit card fraud cases out of 610 reported with just 9.50 per cent detection rate, 51 cases solved out of 686 cases in year 2016 with just 7.43 per cent detection rate, only 134 cases were solved in year 2017 out of 1,522 cases with 8.80 per cent cases and 65 cases were solved by the police out of 858 reported in the last year with 7.57 per cent detection rate.

 

This shows inability of police force to arrest the accused helping them to target common persons with impunity.

The police have managed to put up a good show in job fraud cases as 232 cases were detected out of 332 reported in year 2015, 235 cases detected out of 341 in year 2016, 111 detected out of 243 cases reported in year 2017 and 35 detected out of 135 registered in year 2018.

 

The crime rate in investment fraud cases is steady for the last four years. In year 2015, the State has registered 166 cases and solved 107 of them, 157 cases registered in year 2016 and 119 were solved by the police, 148 cases registered in year 2017 and 66 were solved. The police failed to maintain the good detection rate in year 2018 as just 34 cases were solved by the police out of 121 registered.

 

On-line banking fraud is another headache for the police as the graph of such cases is rising steadily over the years. A total 384 cases were registered in year 2015 and just 58 were solved by the police. In year 2016, the State has registered 459 such cases and just 51 were solved by the police. The graph zoomed up in year 2017 as whopping 773 cases of on-line banking frauds were registered in the State. The police solved only 155 cases. In year 2018, 659 such frauds were reported in the State and the police detected just 69.

 

The State Home Department has set up cyber police stations equipped with modern software and hardware technology tools. However it becomes a difficult exercise for the police to track the location of the accused involved in such on-line frauds.

 

A senior police officer said that the number of fraudsters was increasing because the deterrence of police force was not visible among these white collared criminals. The police needs to walk extra mile for tracking the location of the accused and lodge them in the jail so that they would not even think to commit such frauds again, he further said.