9,400 accounts banned after dedicated probe found links to digital arrests, WhatsApp document in Supreme Court says
WhatsApp has banned 9,400 accounts linked to digital arrests and law enforcement impersonations, as revealed in documents submitted to the Supreme Court. The platform emphasized its strategy to dismantle entire networks of scammers rather than just individual accounts. The Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre reported a significant number of complaints related to these scams, highlighting their serious impact on victims.
- ▪WhatsApp detected and banned up to 9,400 accounts linked to digital arrests after independent investigations.
- ▪The platform is working on SIM binding to link accounts with physical SIM cards to combat scams.
- ▪The Home Ministry reported over 2.41 lakh complaints related to digital arrest scams, involving losses of approximately ₹30,000 crore.
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Documents placed on record in the Supreme Court showed WhatsApp asserting to the Home Ministry that it detected and banned up to 9,400 accounts linked to ‘digital arrests’ and ‘law enforcement impersonations’ after independent investigations.The platform said rather than focus and shut down the seed, it had focussed on bringing down the entire network of scamsters, mostly active in Cambodia.Warning signals sent from probe agencies and the Union government are not treated as isolated or one-off reports, but as a “seed” to map and disrupt the entire criminal network, the platform said.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at The Hindu.
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