Dikhyaa Mohanty 
The Economic Offence Wing (EOW) has outlined the numerous patterns it has found throughout investigations in order to educate the public on the various tactics used by cybercriminals so they may avoid falling victim to such scams.
1. Mostly these scams are run from China/Hongkong and Dubai with some of their support system based in India.
2. The scammers create website/ Apps to run their schemes and also promote them through social media sites.
3. The scammers generally use Whatsapp and telegram channels to communicate with their associates and victims.
4. They use fake SIMs (SIM in someone else’s name) and mule bank accounts wherever required to ensure anonymity.
5. They control and do business through numerous mule bank accounts (traded on dark market in some Whatsapp groups and Telegram channels).
6. While the victims pay their money through UPIs/ digital wallets, the money through some Payment gateway lands at mule bank accounts controlled by scammers. This money is then routed through multiple layers of other mule bank accounts to fool/ puzzle the police/law enforcement agencies.
7. In some schemes, victims are initially paid some amounts to (to lure/ trap) victims. This money is either paid by the mule bank accounts or from other victim’s accounts.
8. It was observed that these mule bank accounts remain active only for few days and after that either it is closed or volume of transactions abruptly becomes negligible.
9. After being channelized through multiple mule bank accounts, the bulk money lands at current accounts of some shell companies or proprietorship firms. Director of these companies are hired or mule directors. These companies/ proprietorships are also controlled by scammers or their agents.
10. In the end, crypto traders in India are offered lucrative rate to convert the bulk amount into Crypto currency. Finally money in the shape of crypto is transferred out of India in a highly organized and complex manner and thereby putting serious limitation to law enforcement agencies to recover/ freeze the amount.
11. In few cases it has been noticed that some amount is withdrawn through ATM in Dubai too.
12. Initial analysis shows that thousands of Crores of rupee might have been siphoned out of India by these foreign Cyber criminals.
According to the EOW, cybercriminals target lower middle and medium income individuals who are looking to make quick cash. Numerous victims have been reported throughout India. Due to the small size of their individual losses, victims do not frequently contact the police or other law enforcement organizations. Unfortunately, more than 100 people in India committed suicide as a result of Chinese Loan App Scams (no one in Odisha).
