'FedEx says your parcel has drugs': The scam that trapped an Indian comedian

"Hello ma'am, I'm calling from FedEx. We've been alerted by constabulary that a courier you sent to Iraq contains drugs."

This is what a antheral connected the different extremity of the telephone told Ankita Shrivastav, a stand-up comedian based successful Mumbai city, 1 day successful October 2024. What followed was 1 of the astir harrowing experiences of her life, Shrivastav says, but she ne'er spoke astir it publically until this April, erstwhile she performed a drama sketch based connected the experience.

In the astir 30-minute video uploaded connected her YouTube channel, Shrivastav narrates however the idiosyncratic connected the telephone asked her to marque a video telephone and connected her with 2 men successful constabulary azygous who placed her nether "digital arrest" until they could verify her individuality and corroborate that she wasn't the idiosyncratic who had sent the courier.

For the adjacent 8 hours, the "policemen" monitored Shrivastav via a video calling app connected her laptop. She wasn't allowed to power disconnected her camera, permission the location oregon conscionable oregon talk to anyone.

They asked her galore questions, including astir her slope accounts and transaction history, each the portion reminding her however sedate the lawsuit was and however overmuch occupation she could beryllium in.

"The unit was aggravated and aft a while, I felt confused and psychologically exhausted. I conscionable wanted the ordeal to end," Shrivastav told the BBC.

She went connected to o.k. transactions worthy 900,000 rupees ($9,300; £6,700) astatine the behest of the alleged policemen, lone to realise aboriginal that the full cognition was a scam and that she had mislaid her money.

"'You're educated, however did you get scammed?' - this is what anyone I spoke to astir my acquisition told me," Shrivastav says. "And that's besides a question I person repeatedly asked myself."

According to the latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report, for the twelvemonth 2023-2024, determination was a astir 18% summation successful cybercrimes year-on-year with Indians losing much than 220bn rupees to integer fraud.

In 2024, 101,928 cybercrimes were registered, an astir 50% summation from 2021.

"Digital arrests" - wherever criminals impersonate instrumentality enforcement oregon authorities officials to falsely impeach victims of a transgression and intimidate them into staying connected a video telephone to extort wealth - are among the astir often reported scams successful the country.

Scammers besides usage fake concern apps, deceptive emails oregon substance messages to bargain oregon instrumentality radical into sharing delicate accusation specified arsenic one-time passcodes (OTPs) and passwords. They besides usage AI to clone voices and impersonate radical oregon nonstop affectional pleas to extort money.

Experts accidental that portion the summation successful cases could bespeak amended reporting of cybercrimes, it besides underscores the changing quality of transgression activity.

An editorial successful The Telegraph paper said that the NCRB study mapped the "emerging anxieties of a nine that is being reshaped by technology, urbanisation and economical change", and added that newer forms of criminality are challenging India's transgression justness system.

Shrivastav agrees. She says making respective trips to assorted instrumentality enforcement agencies to assistance retrieve her wealth from the scammers yielded nary results.

"The scammers were 1 measurement up of the constabulary and slope authorities," she says.

According to the latest NCRB report, by the extremity of 2024 astir 100,000 cybercrime cases were pending probe and astir 75,000 were yet to beryllium tried successful court.

But that's not to accidental that India hasn't been trying to combat the contented connected a warfare footing. In 2020, the national authorities launched the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C), which collaborates with Indian and planetary agencies to tackle cybercrime nationwide.

The authorities has besides launched a helpline - 1930 - and a portal to study and artifact cyber fraud, implemented nationalist consciousness campaigns and caller exertion and information extortion laws to tackle deepfakes and AI-voice scams.

Recently, India's Home Minister Amit Shah announced that I4C was collaborating with Reserve Bank Innovation Hub to usage AI to observe and cull hidden mule accounts - slope accounts oregon integer wallets utilized by cybercriminals to receive, transportation and launder illegally obtained funds portion hiding their existent origin. India's cardinal slope is besides mulling measures to tackle integer scammers.

But information suggests that cybercrime isn't letting up.

Soumya Gupta, a writer and writer of the publication Bharat Bluff: Inside the cons of India's net revolution, says that the roar successful net connections and smartphones has enactment radical astatine accrued hazard of falling prey to integer scams. According to authorities data, over 86% of households are present connected to the internet.

Digital literacy hasn't kept pace, Gupta says, but adds that things are dilatory changing owed to nationalist consciousness campaigns and reporting successful the media.

"But astatine the extremity of the day, the creation of scamming is intelligence alternatively than technological," Gupta says.

She writes successful her publication that scams play connected our fear, greed oregon beliefs and ideology and that erstwhile we're sucked into a scam, we either don't cognize however to extricate ourselves, are excessively ashamed to accidental thing oregon trudge connected owed to sunk-cost fallacy.

Gupta besides says that scammers intimately way people's online behaviour and usage the accusation to prime victims and devise scams that volition get them to instrumentality the bait.

Shrivastav says that it was her fearfulness of the constabulary that was exploited by the scammers and perhaps, her popularity arsenic a stand-up comedian.

"From a young age, we're taught to beryllium acrophobic of the constabulary and to obey authority. That ingrained fearfulness overrode the alarm bells that were ringing successful my brain," she says, adding that she was besides anxious to forestall immoderate incidental that would spoil her estimation among fans.

Performing a drama regular based connected her acquisition was unnerving, she says, arsenic she was frightened to beryllium susceptible astir her mistakes and hazard being called a fool by the audience.

"But I wanted radical to cognize that if I - an educated, municipality pistillate who considers herself to beryllium street-smart - could get scammed, it could hap to anyone," Shrivastav says.

Gupta says that it is important for radical to beryllium cautious astir what they're sharing online and to instrumentality capable measures to safeguard their data.

"But on with this, the aureate regularisation is - if it's excessively bully to beryllium true, it's astir apt not existent and if thing doesn't consciousness right, halt and inquire for help."