Cybercrime losses in Delhi soar 190-fold in a decade

Around 1,600 cases of cyber fraud were lodged in 2025 alone, with the cheated amount in these cases exceeding ₹1,271 crore.

Cybercrime in the national capital has surged alarmingly, with losses shooting up from ₹6.3 crore in 2015 to ₹1,271 crore in 2025 — a 190-fold jump over just 10 years, according to the data shared by the Delhi Police.

Cybercrime losses in Delhi soar 190-fold in a decade

Delhi Police said its Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit and various districts were actively working to curb cyber crimes by registering more FIRs, freezing accounts, and recovering duped funds.

According to Delhi Police’s Cyber Cell, around 1,600 cases of cyber fraud were lodged in 2025 alone, with the cheated amount in these cases exceeding ₹1,271 crore. Last year, Delhi reported 1,591 cases of cyber frauds, and was duped of ₹1,145 crore. The city saw a spike of roughly 10% in losses from 2024, even though the number of cases registered in both the years remains fairly similar.

“We were also surprised at the numbers. Behind the losses are organised gangs which employ tactics such as digital arrests, investment scams and job scams. Different types of OTP and phishing scams, fake bill frauds are also key methods employed by cybercriminals. We have been consistently trying to spread awareness about internet hygiene to protect our users,” a senior police officer said.

According to the data, only 712 cases were lodged and ₹6.3 crore lost in 2015. By 2019, the losses quadrupled to ₹26 crore, while the number of cases lodged was 795. In 2020 — the year of pandemic — number of cybercrime cases doubled to 1,687, with losses reported being ₹35 crores. In 2021, the duped amount reached ₹ 91 crore in 1,630 cases. Police said the hike stemmed from a surge in job and OTP scams, and scams linked to Jamtara gangs.

Officials said that since 2021, police have been actively dismantling cyber crime syndicates, mule accounts, gangs and cryptocurrency rackets. Data shows that while the number of cases have not shot up in comparison to recent years, the losses have sky-rocketed.

In 2022, 1,545 cases were reported and ₹120 crore were lost to fraudsters. In 2023, while the number of cases dropped to 1,347, losses increased over three-fold to 400 crore.

A senior IFSO officer told HT: “While the losses have gone up, the recovered amount has also increased significantly. In 2025 alone, we blocked and froze almost 25% of the cheated amount. Earlier, we could only freeze about 10-15% of the losses. Our teams are constantly working with banks to freeze suspicious accounts, return money to the victims and solve cases.”

Delhi Police said they also launched a special “CyHawk” operation — deploying 5,000 personnel to deal only with cyber cases in a week in December. The Delhi Police on December 13 had said their operation had led to 7,000 detention (yes), and tracing of ₹944 crore linked to multiple mule accounts. Police said that the arrests led to solving over 4,000 cyber complaints across Delhi-NCR and filing of 392 new FIRs.

Joint CP (IFSO) Rajneesh Gupta said: “Before the fraud actually happens, people must report suspicious calls to Sanchar Saathi application or on cybercrime.gov.in. If 10 people receive such fake job offer calls, nine who ignore these, must also alert us. Also, in case of scam, people in Delhi can now visit any police station and your cyber crime complaint will be taken. You don’t have to visit the IFSO or the crime branch office. One can also lodge complaints online or through the 1930 helpline. The amount increase is due to the volume in investment fraud and job fraud cases.”