Cybercrime Trends

Police in Bhadohi, in India's Uttar Pradesh state, have arrested a 27-year-old man accused of creating multiple Telegram groups to collect and share child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The case began with a CyberTipline report received at Koirauna police station. An FIR was registered under India's IT Act, the POCSO Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Officers recovered a Redmi (Xiaomi 15) phone said to have been used in the offence. The arrest was made on 10 November 2026.

India's Enforcement Directorate has arrested Sagar Dash, founder of Armstrong Exchange Pvt Ltd, in its money laundering probe into the All Panel Exchange (APX) betting platform. ED alleges victims' money moved through mule accounts at Jubilee Hills Mercantile Co-operative Bank, Hyderabad, and shell firms into an account at Nagarbhavi Credit Co-operative Society, Bengaluru, and that Dash used the society's KYC and forged papers to open a crypto account. About $960,000 is frozen.

India's Enforcement Directorate has provisionally attached assets worth about $1.5 million (Rs 14.16 crore) in the HashPe cryptocurrency investment case and filed charges before a special money laundering court in Puducherry. Run through hashpe.io and a multi-level marketing network, the scheme raised about $12 million by promising 1% daily returns, trading fictitious coins and paying earlier investors with new money. Four accused are in judicial custody.

India's I4C asked Google on 5 Nov 2026 to remove eight Play Store loan apps. Victims report 7-day terms instead of the 91-365 days advertised, about 40% deducted upfront, contact harvesting and extortion with morphed photos. The apps belong to three separate operations, one with Chinese-language code and a hidden silent-photo function. Four look-alikes still on Play request SMS access, and FlexiBee's replacement uses Beijing-made SDKs despite claiming it collects no data.

Thailand arrested eight Chinese nationals on 9 November 2026 in a Nong Prue, Pattaya, villa raid over a Douyin romance-and-investment scam targeting Chinese victims, with operators posing as army generals. All eight had entered illegally; four were wanted in China. Two Myanmar housekeepers were also detained. Seizures included two laptops, 32 phones and 178-plus SIM cards. Loss figures conflict: a still-unverified 300-million-baht estimate, or about 350 million baht in recorded transfers.

The RCMP said on 9 November 2026 that Maple Disruption 2.0, organized by its National Cybercrime Coordination Centre and the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre from 2 to 6 November, saw partners from more than 50 organizations carry out 10,987 disruptive actions against fraud and cybercrime tools. Officials said 4,264 fraud reports were actioned and $1,063,809 was recovered. The release named no accused and announced no charges.

Navi Mumbai Cyber Police registered a case after Mirae Asset Financial Services (India) alleged Rs 8,92,56,160 was siphoned in four hours on 28 Oct 2026 via 583 fictitious loans and 438 disbursements, with product code PLNMAKS linked to partner Kissht. FIR number not published.

Meta reported 52 million Facebook fraud-and-scam content actions and 2.06 billion fake-account removals in January–June 2026. The figures measure different enforcement activities—not victims or unique people—and cannot be added together. Its global transparency report leaves important questions about fraud exposure and protection unanswered.

The Enforcement Directorate has searched three Bengaluru premises linked to CoinDCX and Delta Exchange under FEMA, 1999, over alleged unauthorised cross-border crypto transactions. The ED said INR deposits were converted to USDT and routed through a Costa Rica paper entity to Binance, KuCoin, Bybit, Gate.io and Hyperliquid for spot, futures and options, and tokenised foreign stock trades, with volumes running into thousands of crores of rupees.

Bhadrak Police in Odisha have arrested SIM agent Subhamjyoti Nayak, 23, accused of activating SIM cards in unsuspecting people's names and supplying their OTPs over WhatsApp and Telegram to cyber fraudsters allegedly operating from China. Police seized 1,333 activated SIM cards, 13 bank passbooks and Rs 1.73 lakh in cash. The gang allegedly misused Vodafone Idea and BSNL agent IDs and moved money through Binance. Five suspects are absconding.

Chitrakoot Police have arrested three men from Prayagraj accused of converting cyber-fraud credits into cash at two petrol pumps. Police said hacked phones in Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan sent Rs 65,000 and Rs 2,08,696 to the pumps' merchant QR codes; the accused took fuel and cash. Two others are wanted. The case shows how merchant UPI accounts are abused as cash-out points, and what bank transaction monitoring should catch.

Jamtara Police arrested three cyber fraudsters who posed as credit card helpdesks and sent fake PhonePe Rs 1,999 cashback messages to trick victims into installing a fake APK app. Police seized Rs 8.13 lakh in cash, eight mobile phones and six fake SIM cards. Two of the accused have earlier cyber fraud charge-sheets. A team led by DSP (Cyber) Amit Ravidas carried out raids at Borowa and Kashitand.