The Centre on Tuesday informed the Supreme Court that most online frauds, such as digital arrests and cyber-bullying, were being carried out from locations in Southeast Asia, predominantly Cambodia, even as WhatsApp stated that it had banned 9,400 accounts for suspicious transactions.

The Centre shared the information in the form of an additional status report submitted by attorney-general R. Venkataramani, whose assistance was earlier sought by a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant while taking suo motu cognisance of the increasing cases of digital arrests and other online scams.

“The overwhelming majority of accounts linked to digital arrest scams targeting Indian users are operated from scam centres located in Southeast Asia, predominantly Cambodia. This finding has been incorporated directly into our proactive detection systems to accelerate identification and enforcement,” the report stated while referring to a probe conducted by WhatsApp’s dedicated investigation wing.

According to the report, “the most prevalent display names used by impersonators include ‘Delhi Police’, ‘Mumbai HQ’, ‘ATS Department’, ‘CBI’, and specific fabricated officer names”.

The report stated that a coordinated drive by government agencies such as the CBI, the RBI, units of the home ministry and WhatsApp’s investigation wing had resulted in a “significant and measurable disruption to digital arrest scam operations on WhatsApp. The 9,400 accounts banned, the suspension of scam-linked groups, and the banning of network administrators, executed in a focused 12-week period, should be expected to produce a material and observable decline in digital arrest incidents originating from WhatsApp”.

Another status report filed on behalf of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), operating under the home ministry, told the court that it had decided to adopt retrospective biometric verification of SIM connections. “It was observed that retrospective verification of such connections would assist in identifying SIM cards being misused in cyber frauds,” it said.

Representatives of telecom service providers told the court that new SIM connections were being issued through Aadhaar-based e-KYC, and the earlier SIMs were being progressively verified.