Nearly a week after Tripura Director General of Police (DGP) Anurag Dhyankar warned people against cybercrime, the Tripura Police recently began a probe into the alleged swindling of over Rs 16 crore through cloned cheques from the bank account of Agartala Municipal Corporation (AMC).
Senior police officers informed that they started an investigation after UCO Bank Zonal Manager Sanjib Roy complained at the West Agartala Police Station that Rs 16.38 crore was recently withdrawn from the Corporation’s account using six cloned cheques.
According to the preliminary investigation, the unidentified fraudsters most likely operated from Hyderabad. They forged the signature of an ex-employee of the municipal corporation and used it to withdraw money from the bank account with cloned cheques.
A police officer said they were going through CCTV footage from the UCO Bank’s main branch in Agartala to identify individuals who submitted those cloned cheques.
Nearly a week ago, DGP Dhyankar had said that the number of cyberattacks, especially financial fraud, had shot up abruptly last year, but the trend seems to have slowed down this year owing to a series of countermeasures.
Quoting data from the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP), he said India sustained financial losses of Rs 22,800 crore in 2024 owing to cyber fraud, a figure which is 206 per cent higher than the Rs 7,400 crore financial loss faced in 2023.
Dhyankar also said the Tripura Police had identified online money fraud worth Rs 46.96 crore since 2021, out of which the authorities were able to secure Rs 5.2 crore and handed back Rs 34 lakh to the victims.
