Pune: The central govt has introduced a new mechanism under which victims of cyber fraud will no longer be required to approach courts to recover up to Rs50,000 from suspicious accounts linked to the crime, which the police get the bank to freeze.Based on a police investigation report, the concerned bank will directly credit such amount to the victim’s account. For amounts exceeding Rs 50,000, victims will need a court order, as was the procedure earlier. More and more people are falling prey to online share trading frauds, digital arrest, remote access software, cryptocurrency frauds and others.“As per the central govt’s new SOPs, victims of cyber fraud are being refunded amounts of up to Rs 50,000 without requiring court permission. Several victims in Pune have already benefited from this facility,” senior inspector Swapnali Shinde of Pune Cyber police station said.Govt formulated the SOPs four months ago and about eight days ago, the powers were delegated to the inspectors, who investigate the cyber frauds, to return the money to the victims of online financial frauds, she said.Cybercriminals typically use many mule bank accounts to transfer or receive money from the victim’s bank account. Cyber investigators use online tools to trace these accounts to which the money is transferred by online fraudsters.“Once a complaint is lodged, the police freeze these bank accounts. Earlier, victims had to obtain court orders to recover their money. It was a lengthy and time-consuming procedure lasting several months to recover money from the frozen bank accounts”, Shinde said.Following guidelines issued by the Supreme Court, the process has now been simplified. The central govt has launched the Money Restoration Portal on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP). Through this portal, amounts of up to Rs 50,000 frozen in the primary account can be returned directly to victims based on the police investigation. The victims can apply on the portal themselves, eliminating the need for a court order.“Now, we can recover the money up to Rs 50,000 from several bank accounts and return it to the victims as quickly as possible after writing to the banks,” she said.Suppose a victim has been cheated for Rs 10 lakhs by the fraudsters and the money has been transferred to several bank accounts. Police freeze these bank accounts and those accounts in which Rs 50,000 or less than Rs 50,000 has been transferred can be directly transferred to the victims after completing the probe.The case investigation officer has to upload a report to the cyber crime portal. The report will then be forwarded to the bank. Based on the report, the bank will complete the process of releasing the frozen amount, up to Rs 50,000, Shinde added.
