WhatsApp Tells Supreme Court It Banned 9,400 Accounts Tied To ‘Digital Arrest’ Scams, Most Run Out Of Cambodia
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WhatsApp has informed the Home Ministry that it tracked down and shut nearly 9,400 accounts linked to 'digital arrests' and 'law enforcement impersonations' after carrying out independent investigations, according to documents placed before the Supreme Court, The Hindu reported.
The messaging platform said instead of merely acting on the initial tip-off, it chose to dismantle the wider network of scamsters, a chunk of which is operating out of Cambodia.
Alerts received from investigating agencies and the Union government, the platform said, are not treated as one-off reports but as a "seed" used to chart and break up the larger criminal web.
WhatsApp explained that its inquiries fan out from these government leads to track creators or administrators steering scam operations such as digital arrests, along with accounts actively pushing fraudulent activity in groups and channels.
The exchange between WhatsApp and the Home Ministry was attached to a status report filed on behalf of the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) by the Ministry. Attorney-General R. Venkataramani is appearing for the Ministry in the apex court.
The report stated that several measures were taken up at a meeting of the Inter-Departmental Committee chaired by the Special Secretary (Internal Security) in March.
WhatsApp, along with leading Telecom Service Providers including Airtel, Vodafone-Idea, Reliance Jio and BSNL, was called for the discussion.
WhatsApp said work on SIM binding, which ties an account to a physical SIM card, was under way, and that the platform would adhere to the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, including the rules on flagging Synthetically Generated Information used in video calls for 'digital arrests'.
The Ministry and other stakeholders also agreed to put in place a system to identify and block device IDs being misused in such scams.
WhatsApp will further sharpen its AI/ML-based detection of fake law enforcement avatars, misuse of official logos and synthetic content, and retain data of deleted accounts for a minimum of 180 days.
Recently, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant had described digital arrest scams as the "most disturbing" form of cyber crime, calling it an offence against "human dignity".
The Home Ministry has logged over 2.41 lakh complaints involving losses of around Rs 30,000 crore.
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