NEW DELHI: The Central government has blocked 100 websites operated by overseas actors for their alleged involvement in organized investment and task-based part-time job frauds.

These websites were blocked by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) after the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) wing of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), through its vertical National Cybercrime Threat Analytics Unit (NCTAU), had last week identified and recommended over 100 websites involved in organized investment and task-based part-time job frauds.

"MeitY, invoking its power under the Information Technology Act, 2000, has blocked these websites," the MHA said in a statement, adding "These websites, which facilitated task-based and organized illegal investment-related economic crimes, were learnt to being operated by overseas actors and they were using digital advertisement, chat messengers and mule or rented accounts."

"It was also learnt that proceeds from the large-scale economic frauds were seen to be laundered out of India using card networks, cryptocurrency, overseas ATM withdrawals and international Fintech companies. In this regard, several complaints were received through the 1930 helpline and NCRP and these offences were posing a significant threat to the citizens and also involved data security concerns," the MHA added.

These frauds, typically, involve steps such as targeted digital advertisements, which are launched on platforms like Google and Meta using keywords like"Ghar baithe job", and "Ghar baithe kamayi kaise karen" in multiple languages from overseas advertisers.

"Targets are mostly retired employees, women and unemployed youth looking for part time jobs," the MHA said.

Upon clicking the advertisement, the Ministry said, an agent using WhatsApp and Telegram starts a conversation with the potential victim, who convinces her to perform some tasks like video likes and subscribe and maps rating.

"Upon completion of the task, the victim is given some commission, initially and is asked to invest more to get more returns against the given task. After gaining confidence, when the victim deposits a larger sum, deposits are frozen and thus victim is duped," said the MHA.

As a precautionary measure, the MHA said, it is advised to exercise due diligence before investing in any such very high commission paying online schemes sponsored over the internet.

"If an unknown person contacts you over WhatsApp and Telegram, refrain from performing financial transactions without verification. Verify the name of the receiver mentioned in the UPI App. If the receiver is any random person, it may be a mule account and the scheme may be fraudulent. Similarly, check the source from where an initial commission is received," MHA added.

"Citizens should refrain from doing transactions with unknown accounts, as these could be involved in money laundering and even terror financing and lead to blocking of accounts by police and other legal action," suggested the Ministry.

It further said under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the guidance of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, building a "Cyber Safe India" is one of the top priorities of the MHA.

Under the guidance of the Union Home Minister, the statement mentioned, "The MHA is committed to curbing cybercrime and protecting people from cyber threat actors."

"Citizens are also advised to promptly report phone numbers and social media handles used by such fraudsters to the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP)," it added.

Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) is an initiative of MHA to deal with cybercrime in the country in a coordinated and comprehensive manner.