₹3,000 crore lost to digital arrest scams, says Supreme Court
CYBER SECURITY
4 NOVEMBER 2025
- The Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Surya Kant said more than ₹3,000 crore had been scammed by fraudsters from victims in India alone, mostly drawn from the elderly population, through “digital arrests”.
- He wasreferring to a confidential report submitted by the Union government.
- Justice Kant, who is the Chief Justice of India-designate, said the report showed that the problem of digital arrests was a “very big challenge”. “
- Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta, for the Centre, agreed with Justice Kant, saying digital arrest scam was initially found to be beyond what they had expected.
- Justice Kant said the judiciary would pass harsh and stringent orders to strengthen the hands of the agencies against the fraudsters, “give you all support”. “Otherwise, this problem will magnify, and the victims are aged people,” Mr. Mehta said.
- In an earlier hearing, the Supreme Court had orally mooted tasking the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) with probing the menace of digital arrests orchestrated by fraudsters posing as judges and police officers who use forged documents.
- Attorney-General R. Venkataramani had submitted that these cyber-crimes originate from across the border and were fashioned by “money-laundering gangs”.
- The Supreme Court had originally taken suo motu cognisance of a case of digital arrest of a senior citizen couple in Haryana’s Ambala on the basis of forged orders of the court and probe agencies by fraudsters to extort ₹1.05 crore.
