In the first five months of 2025, Indians lost nearly ₹7,000 crore to online Scams, according to an estimate shared by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
More than half of this amount was taken by scam networks based in Cambodia and other Southeast Asian nations like Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand, as reported by the Indian Express.
The data comes from the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), which works under the MHA. The investigators found that many of these scams operate from tightly secured buildings controlled by Chinese operators. Shockingly, traffickers force people—some of them Indians—to run these scams, Indian Express reported. The report shows that, on average, India is losing around ₹1,000 crore every month to these scams.
An official explained:
“In January, ₹1,192 crore was lost to Southeast Asia-based countries, ₹951 crore in February, ₹1,000 crore in March, ₹731 crore in April and ₹999 crore in May.”
The Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting and Management System (CFCFRMS), run by I4C, provided the data that supports these figures. It helps people report and track financial cybercrimes.
The Indian Express report also points out that three major types of scams are coming from Southeast Asia:
- Stock trading/investment scams
- Digital arrest
- Task-based and investment-based scams
A government official added:
“With the help of intelligence agencies, the government has identified at least 45 such scam compounds in Cambodia, five in Laos, and one in Myanmar.”
Police and cybercrime teams identified several agents in India who recruited people for these scam operations. They tracked the highest number of agents in Maharashtra (59), followed by Tamil Nadu (51), Jammu and Kashmir (46), Uttar Pradesh (41), and Delhi (38).
According to I4C, if the trend continues, Indians could lose over ₹1.2 trillion to cybercrime in the next year alone.
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