‘80 per cent cyber criminals are educated jobless youth’

The Mumbai cyber crime cell said that 80 per cent of the youths that it had arrested in one and half years were educated but unemployed. They were mostly held in cases related to cheating and online fraud. The police has claimed that it is mostly the unemployed educated youth that resort to online fraud.

Increasing cases of cyber crime by such youngsters have become a worry for the police. There were 282 cases registered last year of which 50 cases were detected and 82 accused have been arrested by the cell. In the first three months of 2016, 90 cases of cyber crime were registered, 10 are solved and 15 accused have been arrested. All the arrested accused were youngsters who were educated but did not have a job.

Also, according to officials, among these cases, 50 per cent of the cyber crimes are committed by Nigerians, mostly arrested from Navi Mumbai.

Most of these cases are related to credit and debit card fraud while some cases are related to sending obscene emails, SMSes or MMSes. There are also fraud cases related to online shopping websites that are increasing day by day.

Recently, the cyber crime cell arrested two accused in online fraud case. They were identified as Avinash Pandey (25) and Sunilkumar Yadav (27). Yadav was studying BSC in a Uttar Pradesh-based college and Pandey is a good swimmer but got involved in a cheating case because they wanted to earn money.

Commenting on the matter, an official from the cyber crime cell said, “Recently we had arrested one more group of such educated but unemployed youngsters who took to sending fraudulent e-mails regarding job opportunities in the United Kingdom, winning lottery etc. to gain access to others’ credit card details. They had also begun to use social media platforms to target their victims.”