Kolkata: With Durga Puja travel bookings set to gather pace over the next few weeks, Kolkata Police has issued an advisory urging travellers to exercise caution while booking hotels online and to avoid sharing unmasked Aadhaar cards during hotel check-ins, warning that cyber criminals are increasingly exploiting holiday travel to steal personal and financial information.The advisory comes amid a rise in phishing scams involving fake hotel booking portals, cloned travel websites, fraudulent payment links and misuse of identity documents.A team of officers from Kolkata Police cyber cell while presenting an awareness programme at the annual general meeting of Travel Agents Federation of India (eastern chapter) said cyber fraudsters often create websites that closely resemble genuine hotel or travel aggregator platforms, luring customers with steep discounts and demanding advance payments.“We have noticed a spike in cyber frauds linked to holiday travel every festive season. People tend to make hurried bookings after seeing attractive offers on social media or messaging platforms without verifying the authenticity of the website or the hotel. We are urging travellers to only book through online travel aggregators or genuine web pages of the hotels,” said Suvankar Chakraborty, OC cyber cell (south division) of Kolkata Police.The officer advised travellers to verify websites through websites like Virustotal and MKavach to check their genuineness and carefully check the URL before making payments and avoid transferring money directly to personal bank accounts or UPI IDs shared over phone calls or messaging applications.The advisory also focusessed on the misuse of identity documents during hotel check-ins. Police have urged guests not to hand over photocopies or digital copies of unmasked Aadhaar cards when identity verification is required.“Hotels require identity proof, but citizens should wherever possible use masked Aadhaar, which conceals the first eight digits of the Aadhaar number. This significantly reduces the risk of identity theft if the document is copied, leaked or improperly stored,” the officer said.The officer added that in recent investigations related to digital arrests, they have found that the criminals gained access to compromised Aadhaar cards on a number of cases from hotels and often used the leaked identity documents to open fraudulent accounts, obtain SIM cards or impersonate victims while carrying out financial crimes apart from blackmailing the victims by holding him hostage at home.Police have also advised travellers not to overshare vacation photographs where photos taken at beaches, swimming pools and other places can often be used to cyber criminals where they morph and recreate videos using such photos and end in cyber bullying and even graver crimes like sextortion.“Sharenting is one of the newer forms of cyber crimes we are dealing with. We urge travellers not to overshare photos and videos on social media platforms and if they must they should share it within a closed group of friends and family members they know,” said the officer.TAFI (east) chairman Anil Punjabi welcomed the advisory, saying cyber awareness has become as important as travel planning during the festive season.“Online travel bookings have become the norm, but travellers must verify the authenticity of the hotel, booking platform and payment gateway before making any transaction. Simple precautions such as booking through authorised channels and using masked identity documents can prevent substantial financial losses,” said Punjabi.
