Cybercrime: 19.18 Lakh Complaints In 2024, Know How To Report Fraud Calls

With digital advancement, cybercrimes are also growing. In 2024, 19.18 lakh cybercrime complaints have been reported on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP). NCRP portal is a government initiative where anyone can report cybercrime incidents, including mobile crimes, social media, and online crimes, online financial frauds, cryptocurrency crimes, hacking, as well as Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), Child Pornography (CP), or sexually explicit content.

According to the written reply in Lok Sabha on April 2, 2025, by Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar, Minister of State for Communications & Rural Development, these cyber crimes have resulted in financial losses of Rs 22,811.95 crore.

As digitization is increasing in every area, cyber frauds are also evolving from fraudulent calls to impersonating officials, digital arrests, and so on. While the NCRP portal is for those who have been defrauded and suffered losses, if the fraud has not happened but is suspected, one can still report it but on the Sanchar Saathi Portal.

While the Ministry of Home Affairs established the NCRP and Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) to mitigate cybercrimes, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has also collaborated with the telecom service providers (TSPs) in October 2024, to identify and block the international spoofed calls, which appears to be Indian mobile numbers. 

According to the reply, 1.35 crore calls were blocked within 24 hours of launching the system of blocking spoofed international calls. As a result, such calls came down to 4 lakh as of March 3, 2025, showing a 97 per cent decline.

Under several initiatives to mitigate telecom-based frauds, DoT also launched an online portal 'Sanchar Saathi' in 2023. This portal, through its Chakshu option, facilitates people to report a call, SMS, or WhatsApp message if they suspect these to be fraudulent.

Sanchar Saathi Portal:

The online portal allows mobile subscribers to report any suspicious calls, SMS, or WhatsApp messages on it. One can even report a communication where the caller has impersonated a government official representing any department, police, bank, gas, electricity, insurance, or asking for KYC, investment, and trading.

However, if you suspect that the caller is not genuine, report such communication on the portal. 

How To Report Suspicious Call On The Portal:

• Visit the official portal of Sanchar Saathi

• Click on 'Chakshu - Report Suspected Fraud and Unsolicited Commercial Communication' under the Citizen Centric Services

• Select the medium of fraud communication (Call, SMS, WhatsApp) and the category from the drop-down menu

• Attach a screenshot (up to 1MB in size), add the date and time of communication, and write the complaint’s details. Note that giving complaint details is optional.

• Enter your name, and mobile number on which the fraudulent communication was received, and enter the captcha code

• Verify the details with OTP and submit 

Similarly, one can also report suspicious communications on mobile app available on Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

The details go to DoT, which verifies it and takes action accordingly by blocking the number or reporting it to the police, whatever they deem appropriate.

Remember that senior citizens or someone who finds it difficult to visit the online portal or app of NCRP or Sanchar Saathi may call the cybercrime toll-free number 1930 to report the incident and lodge a complaint.