This cell has been equipped with state-of-the-art tools to tackle cases related to financial fraud, data theft, social media crimes among others
On the first floor of a building in Noida’s Sector 6, a team of 10 sits behind workstations. While some examine a black suitcase hooked to wires, others look at a screen attached to a smaller device. With four cubicles devoted to email tracking, data acquisition and recovery, social media investigation and mobile phone surveillance, this is the Centre for Cyber Crime Investigation (CCCI) — Uttar Pradesh’s first cyber crime centre has been inaugurated.
With around 780 cases of cyber crime reported in Noida in 2015, this cell has been equipped with state-of-the-art tools to tackle cases related to financial fraud, data theft, social media crimes among others. “In cases of cyber crimes, techniques used for preventing, solving and analysing traditional crimes are not of much help. The manner in which these crimes take place and the material recovered in such cases are different from regular crimes. Most of this material is in digital form and one needs specific hardware and software for analysing it,” said Dinesh Yadav, SP City, Noida.
Yadav will lead a team of 10 members at CCCI. Elaborating on the social media investigation section, Yadav said his team will look at crimes related to platforms like Facebook and Twitter. “A huge portion of cyber crimes committed on social media target women. Several times, such complaints are not filed with police. We do not reveal the identity of the complainant and using advanced software tools, we will tackle cases,” he said. Pointing to a disk imaging tool at the Data Acquisition and Recovery Section, Yadav said the equipment will help police “create images of the hard disk before its data is examined forensically” — a crucial step in using digital evidence in courts. “The data acquisition and recovery section is the most crucial where all forensic tools are used… A separate forensic tool for mobile phones has also been procured. A lot of financial fraud cases come to us where a person’s email account is misused. We are equipped to track the origin of such e-mails,” Yadav added.
615 cases of financial fraud reported in 2015
Last year on September 18, a resident of Gautam Budh Nagar received a phone call informing him that he had been shortlisted for a contest. The caller, claiming to be from a web portal, asked the man to register for the next level of the contest online. While directing him through the registration process, the caller was able to obtain his bank account details and duped him of nearly Rs 2 lakh. This was one of around 615 cases of financial fraud which came to Gautam Budh Nagar police in 2015. With the Centre for Cyber Crime Investigation (CCCI) being inaugurated Monday, police said they would be better equipped to handle such cases. “Last year, money looted through cyber crime frauds amounted to Rs 5 crore. Of this, we managed recover Rs 47 lakh and seal 40 fake call centres. With the help of advanced tools, we will be able to solve cases faster,” said Dinesh Yadav, SP City, Noida.