Jamtara - India's cyber-crime capital

There are times when an encounter with a situation in our life drives our efforts to investigate the detailed cause or stories behind it. One such thing happened with me during the time of my first job in Jaipur, Rajasthan (India). As Diwali holidays had been declared in the month of November 2018, I boarded a train, The Ranikhet express, at about 3:00 PM, from Jaipur junction to reach Kashipur (my hometown) in Uttarakhand. It was a 13-hour long journey and I was mentally prepared for that.

Time passes very well in a train when you are an extrovert but as the clock struck 4, I decided to lie down on my berth, the upper one. I climbed up and the moment was about to begin my nap, there was a call on my mobile with an unknown number displaying on the screen. Puzzled, I picked up.

"Hello Sir, am I speaking to Dr. Deepikesh Joshi ?" an executive-typed voice devoid of any excitement was heard from the other side.

"Yes, who's this ?"

"Hello sir, I am speaking from the State bank of India, Kashipur branch. You have not verified your account or in other words, registered your KYC (Know Your Customer) due to which your account is being closed. Do you want to confirm your KYC using your account and aadhar number ?"

I was perturbed at the call as I didn't had much knowledge about the current banking affairs, even though my father is a banker himself. I realized that, since I had recently opened this SBI account, all my account details were at home.

"Sir, actually I don't have my account details right now. The mobile network is not proper at the moment, so asking for account details from home would be useless. I am currently on my way to Kashipur and would verify my details tomorrow by coming in person. Please try to understand my situation and delay the closing of my account till then." I pleaded like a kid.

"I understand but we have pressure on us from our seniors to complete it as today's the last day for the KYC input. Either you do it now or your account may get closed."

Frustrated of pleading to a least empathetic banker in a state of semi-drowsiness with the crowded and loud environment of the compartment, I answered.

"Okay, you can close my account."

There was a silence of about 5 seconds on the other side. Then the person said, "Are you sure doctor sahab ?"

"Yes", said I.

The bank official hung up. I had already thought that my father would be having some contacts in the SBI, Kashipur, so he may get the problem fixed after I reach home as it was just a matter of few hours. We could say that I took a calculated risk. Then, I began my nap and the journey continued.

Next day, as I returned from the SBI, Kashipur, I was shocked and felt lucky, both at the same time. Shocked as the bank official told me that no such  KYC was required as of now but would be in near future adding that no one from the bank had called me a day before. The call I had received was an online phishing bait. I felt lucky as I had not fallen prey to the scammer who had called me. From that bank official, it was the first time in my life that I came to know of a place- JAMTARA.

Awestruck as I was, I came back home, called my father with whom I was not able to contact earlier before going to the bank as he is posted in Almora (a hill station of the state) where the telecom signals face problem frequently, for it being a hilly area. I narrated the whole story to him as soon as the call got connected. He made me remember that he had told me about these phishing calls himself a few months ago. I realized that it had slipped my mind. He advised me to beware such calls in future and hung up. This whole episode developed a curiosity in me to know more about this scam-business and its connection to Jamtara. So, I began exerting my brain cells and the internet.

 Jamtara is an under-developed, small rural city and the district headquarters of Jamtara district, a city formed by a large group of about 150 villages, at a distance of 225 Km from Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand (India). This city has a large area under forest cover and basic amenities like roads and electricity supply are even worse than what we would observe in a typical Indian village. But, when a person would enter the city through the roads completely filled with potholes, he/ she would certainly be amazed by a site which is quite uncommon to other villages of the country. Dozens of mobile towers could be seen on both sides of the roads among the forest areas and agricultural fields as if Jamtara housed the headquarters of telecom companies like Reliance or Idea !!

One would notice many young boys, and even girls, near these towers and over the trees talking on mobiles, running the phishing business. Over 90% of the youth of Jamtara is involved in cyber-scamming and seeing the lavish life of these scammers, their numbers are increasing day by day as more youngsters, already possessing a well-settled job, are getting attracted to the business for more money in a short span of time. Jamtara has a poor electric supply, as is common to any backward village of India, with only 4 to 5 hours of power per day. During the timings of power supply each day, youth here have just one job which they do as for their life- to charge their phones' batteries.

Police of almost every state and UT of the country has raided Jamtara in search of the scammers, since it has become a hub for the cyber crime in India with about 80 % of it being done from the city. It had made many arrests earlier when the youngsters used to sit in groups in the fields near the mobile towers for a good network for phishing. They used to run to the nearby jungles on seeing the police, hence, it faced a great difficulty in getting hold of a majority of them. Dense forests of Jamtara have saved many scammers from arrests. The scenario has changed now, as the scammers have earned a good fortune with the business growing. Now, as the number of telecom towers have also increased due to a digital revolution, they don't sit in groups near the towers in the fields but take all of their paraphernalia and sit inside their ‘earned’ SUVs and go for a long drive. It is during this drive that they call random numbers as a phishing bait, the calls that have conned even movie stars like Amitabh Bachchan, after debiting 5 lakhs Rupees from his account. Many army officers, ministers and even intelligence officers of IB and CBI have fallen their prey, thus losing large sums of money amounting to lakhs of rupees. It is due to these powerful personalities being baited, this scam gained so much of a limelight in the country.

P.C. - The Times of India (Feb 20, 2020)

How it began ?

The beginning of this business can be traced back to the beginning of the last decade i.e in 2010-11. It was the time when the youth from Jamtara moved to cities like Delhi and Mumbai in search of jobs. Less educated as they were (not even high-school pass), they did many odd jobs in these cities. It was during this time, these youths became fascinated to the contests that were played using mobile phones in which they would receive a message with too easy questions about movies or cricket, which even a primary school kid could answer, and the contests had many steps containing different questions of a similar aptitude with a final result of winning a huge sum of money. They began playing these contests through their mobiles answering each question through a message to the contest company, which charged them much more than a normal message, leading to the contest company earning a share out of per message charges and thus, earning fortune. All the time, after they answered the final question correct and had spent a good amount of their balance on the game, the game would end automatically without any declaration of the winners. When they would try to call the number of the company organizing the game, the result would be obsolete as the company would vanish in thin air. In this way, these youths got the first taste of scamming after they themselves were scammed by the shell companies through these contests, contests which were stopped in the latter half of the decade as cyber rules became stronger.

After being scammed many times, youths of Jamtara began their own business of stealing the balance from the mobile of a person into their own cell-phone using some mobile tricks. By this time, these youths had come in contact with some ‘more educated’ people of their city, so this sort of scam became easy with their help. Beginning with the stealing of a mere balance of a cell-phone, they had a big plan in their mind. Now, they began the online phishing business to empty the money from the account of their prey in a single click. Till 2015, they operated this business from the metro cities with a group of very less people but as they began moving to Jamtara after they had earned a good fortune out of it, they began teaching these tricks to the youngsters of the villages of Jamtara, who too would have otherwise gone elsewhere to do some odd jobs. The village that was the most fugitive for this business out of all was Karmatand aka Karmatar, the reason being the mobile towers being the closest to this village.

P.C. - The Hindu (Aug 12, 2017)

Soon, as the fortune began its inflow, more and more people were attracted towards the business, even the educated ones with a degree. Many youngsters even came back to Jamtara from Delhi and Mumbai, after quitting their well-paid jobs, to enter this business as they saw a quick rise in the earnings and lifestyles of their contemporaries of Jamtara, who hadn't stand any chance before them had it come to the educational status. One problem that they faced was an unconvincing tone of their voice and their way of speaking, which didn’t appeared to their prey that an executive of a bank is on the other side. Then, to curb this anomaly, they closely observed the way of talking of the bank officials and recorded their voices which they would hear day and night with its imitation. Sitting in groups together, along with practicing this imitation, they learnt various banking terms like repo rate, savings account, bank rate etc. so that they could sound convincing. Moreover, English tutorial classes were also organized in groups to make them sound as a well-learned bank official, when conning a minister or a movie star. They attended these classes in large groups where they were only taught a few template sentences of the banking world in English with the practice of fluency to speak them.

Presently, the situation can be understood by the fact that almost all the youth, both boys and girls of every educational status of Jamtara, are involved in this business. The result is that we can find big bungalows in the villages, where there were Kachcha houses sometime ago. Almost each house owner has a luxury car with LCD TVs, expensive sofa-sets, i-phones and every other luxury item we could think of. Once an investigative team of a news channel visited Jamtara for a ground report and they were shocked to find a person with just a paan-shop owning 3 SUVs and a big bungalow. On being asked about how he earned this much, he just replied innocently “My son does a job in a telecom company”. It was clear that his son hadn’t told him about his business. On telling the shop owner about his son being a phishing-scammer, he again replied innocently, “Its ok. Atleast he is earning money without killing anyone”.

P.C. - Economic Times (Aug 02, 2018)

Methods they follow:

Their main aim is to hit the ‘psychology of fear’ of their prey. According to my research, till the present time, these are the ways they use for online-scamming:

1)        Earlier they called a random phone number and, posing as a bank official with some problem with the ATM of that person that could be blocked soon, asked the account number, ATM card number, CVV (Card Verification Value) no. and even the ATM PIN from the person at the other end. Due to the fear of card being blocked or the account being closed, the person would give them his 16 digit ATM card number and the call would end. Within a few moments, the person would receive a message of almost all the money in the account been debited, leaving him helpless. Each scammer made about 100 random calls each day changing the digits and state-codes in a pattern so that the calls are made in random places all over India, which is being followed by them in present times too.

2)        Since the cyber rules have strengthened now and customers receive an OTP for every online transaction, they call a random number and ask for the One Time Password (OTP) that you receive on your phone through the number linked to your bank account, after you have given all the account details, with an assurance that as soon as you give the OTP, they would fix the problem of your card. Once you give them the OTP and the call ends, after a few seconds, money from your account is debited and you receive the debit-message on your phone. This happens because as the scammer is taking your account and card details, another scammer remains besides him entering all the details on an another device simultaneously to perform phishing. Now, they have even purchased many softwares from foreign countries that would just need the ATM card no. of the customer and the software would help them in receiving the OTP on their own device which, otherwise, would have been received by the account holder.

3)      They have become so high-tech that they ask the person on the other side to tell their 16-digit ATM card number, on account of a problem in it, and also the phone number linked to the given account. Then, they use some softwares to clone complete phone of the customer only by entering the phone number given by the person being conned. After cloning the phone, they can make a transaction of as much amount as they like.

4)      Many times, they use links sent through messages in the mobiles, which when clicked open, would hack or clone the device and then, they can make any transaction, if that number is linked to a bank account, using high-tech softwares. Cloning the device would provide them access to all the contacts and then they would call any of the family member of the prey, posing as their well-wisher and asking for money with a fake news that their target person has met with an accident and is in a hospital in a critical condition !!! These messages, with an improper English with various grammatical errors, mention about the Paytm or GooglePay account of the user to be with incomplete information and hence being closed. The person, in fear of losing money, clicks on those links and loses money.

5)      They design fake e-commerce websites like Flipkart, with a mask of selling sports goods or furniture or other things where only advance payments for the goods have to be done. Once a person enters the card details, they get to know everything they need and customer ends up loosing money. They even use OLX website and application to perform their business by posing as a buyer, conning the person who wishes to sell anything by asking for his account details so that they can transfer money in their account in advance and visiting to take the item later. Once the seller gives the details, his account goes empty !!!

P.C. - The Times of India (Apr 20, 2020)

6)      Demonetisation was a failure for our economy but it had a good fortune for such scammers. During demonetization, as people were too uncertain about their accounts and money, these people earned huge amounts by card cloning. They even used these cloned cards to purchase things, that were kept on sale at cheaper prices due to fall in economy, and sold them afterwards at higher prices.

Punishments:

As mentioned earlier, police of almost every state and UT of India has raided Jamtara at least once, most being the Delhi police. Many times, arrests have been made but cyber laws are still so weak in India that the culprits get bail after a few days, as they hire some good lawyers to defend them, and again get on with their business. Also, there is no proof of any crime done by them almost all the time. This is the reason why they would not fear on the name of reporting them to the police, if confronted by the person who had not fallen for their bait and would use abusive languages for the person in return. Moreover, their complaints made to the cyber cell by the people who are conned are not fruitful as there remains no proof of the phishing been done once the scammer destroys the SIM card and the mobile from which he called to the complainant due to which no arrests are possible. The situation has worsened to such an extent that police teams raiding the villages of Jamtara have been attacked many times with many policemen losing their lives. Hence, now even police of other states and even Jharkhand too, fears to go there. Many believe that these attacks are due to the native villagers who feel that the image of their native place has been maligned by the repeated visits of police from various states. Many a times, the attacks are an attempt to save the scammers. Other states’ police are unaware about the geography of the area and as the raids are performed, scammers run away in dense forests and thus, escaping the arrests. One important fact is that this business would not have flourished without any political and administrative help. Hence, a nexus of politicians-police-civil servants is always mentioned behind closed doors.

How to be secure:

1)               The foremost thing we must keep in mind is that a bank never calls you for your account details in normal situations. Even if it calls due to some unavoidable circumstances, it will only ask the last four digits of your ATM card or account number or just the name by which you have your account in the bank and never the CVV no. or ATM PIN. Hence, do not ever share the ATM card number, card’s CVV no. and ATM PIN with anyone.

2)                 Never click on any unknown links received by you in an ordinary or Whatsapp message as it may leak whole of your device’s info as well as your mobile number linked to any bank account to these scammers, thus emptying your bank account.

3)                 If you receive any such calls and succeed in identifying the person as a scammer, immediately hang-up the call and report the number to your state’s cyber-security cell. Do not let the scammer go away easily. Take the follow-up for your complaint periodically.

4)                 Even after taking all the necessary precautions, if you lose money after falling prey to these scammers due to human error, do not lose hope and still contact the cyber-security cell of your district or state and take the follow-up of your complaint afterwards.

5)                Make people around you aware of these online scams, especially if you live in a rural area, as rural people are an easy prey for them due to the fear of losing their hard-earned money. In the same way, people of urban areas too, need to be made aware regarding this business. Recently, Netflix has released a web series named 'Jamtara- Sabka Number Aaega' based on this ‘phishing capital’, after which it has again gained limelight.

Recently, seeing the 'spoiled talent' of these youngsters who are almost uneducated but performing crimes with such mastery, high court of Jharkhand situated in Ranchi has ordered the formation of a committee to perform a research on the psychology and methods of these scammers. These people, although talented in many terms, have been making a wrong use of it. The local authorities and even the state government can, if they have the will, make a good use of their talents for a purpose which serves the nation in a positive way. Attracting them towards education and providing them mainstream jobs according to their qualities could bring these youths out of this business but ‘the nexus’, as mentioned earlier, is causing a major hindrance to these steps that are needed to be followed. Moreover, now it would be very difficult to bring these people to mainstream as they have savoured the methods of earning huge amounts of money without much labour in a short time. In the present scenario, we can only stop subsequent 'batches' of the youths of Jamtara that are about to go into the business, which does not seem easy without the will-power of local authorities.

There is a need to organize a nationwide campaign to generate awareness among the people against these cyber crimes along with pressurizing the government to make cyber-crime laws more strict (non bailable with a heavy fine etc.) so that such scammers learn a lesson of their life. Moreover, the connection of these culprits with the local politicians and police, who provide them protection in return of favour in terms of huge sums of money, needs to be exposed. Only then these criminals would face the punishments they deserve. Till then, stay aware, stay safe !! 

The corona chronology - a conspiracy ?

As the world has closed down and the lives of the people have come to a stand-still, it has had both positive and negative things to be talked about. In the Indian picture, positive things have been in the manner with many people getting to spend time with their families who were otherwise devoid of it due to their jobs. Brushing up of old hobbies and developing new ones with their appreciation on social media is another positive thing in this depressing scenario. On the other hand, ceasing of economic activities with a halt on businesses and no work for daily wagers with their families in a condition of starvation and helplessness are the foremost negative impacts of this lockdown along with the continuous inputs of news regarding death tolls, infected areas and the people being a cause for spreading the viral disease, thus, causing a psychological-negativity like disorder.

Staying in such a 'forced home-stay' can sometimes be frustrating with rational thoughts being an invisible thing but one day, as I was lying on my bed exhausted by an-hour long online class, my rational thinking revisited me to ponder over the reasons for the world being in this situation. Although, i had read the newspapers and was in touch with news channels and websites regularly, thinking of the happenings of the world related to the virus in a stepwise manner would have cleared a good deal of my thought process.
So i switched-on my mind-machinery.

It was on January 11, 2020 that China first announced to the world of their first death due to a virus called 'Corona'. China told that the virus had an origin from the bats in the wet-market of Wuhan city, the capital of Hubei province in China. It told that a lady, who sold bat-meat in the market was the 'patient-zero'. Along with this news, it also added that virus was not the thing to be worried about and it would be easily contained. Whole world, including India, took the virus lightly and busied itself in other affairs, even when the first death in India due to corona virus was reported later i.e on January 30, 2020.

Then came the news of the community-spread of the virus in China in the month of February with death toll rising indiscriminately. Videos on Facebook and Instagram began to go viral of the condition there. It was the first time that the world got the hint of the seriousness of the situation. The community spread in China was adhered to the fact that Chinese new-year celebration began from February 12, 2020 with the next two weeks as holidays and people working at many far-away places and countries moved to their homes. Moreover, no ban on flights to and from China to other countries was there till now, resulting in the greater spread of virus to the whole world.

This rising death toll was a thing-too-big to be controlled by China. Wuhan was locked down and sealed with only patients and doctors being allowed the entry. Wuhan was named the epicentre for the virus. Meanwhile, many countries stopped the immigration of Chinese passengers in their countries with all the flights to China being cancelled or diverted or put on limited restrictions. But little did they know that it was too late.

From the beginning of March 2020, corona-positive patients began being reported from the countries like Italy, Spain, USA and Germany. Along with the world, India was alert on the situation and advisories by the Ministry of Health of the country were issued using various newspapers, news-channels and other social-media platforms to avoid any contact and to maintain social-distance during the celebration of Holi festival on March 9 and 10, 2020. But, the colour of celebration had a much darker shade than the advisory as Indians are known to celebrate their festivals with utmost enthusiasm. Screening of corona virus symptoms had already been started at various airports in the country.

Before Holi, a few positive cases had already been detected from various states of India. Afterwards, may be due to increase in the number of tests, the number of positive-patients shooted. This led to the government coming into action and strict advisories regarding awareness of social-distancing and hygiene were advertised. Schools, colleges and universities along with places of worship all over India were advised to shut-down for an indefinite period.

Seeing the rise in the number of cases, PM Modi announced a day-long 'Janata-Curfew' on March 22, 2020 which was later identified as a 'try-ball' for a 21 day lock-down announced on March 24 till April 14, 2020. Whole India was locked in their houses with limited or feeble ration but they supported the cause. This lockdown helped a great deal to stop the community spread of the virus but then 'The Tabhlighi Jamaat' incident happened and positive cases were again at a rise. This caused the lockdown to be further extended till May 3, 2020.

Meanwhile during this period, USA, Italy and Spain were experiencing their worst nightmares with whole of their administrative, medical and research facilities failing in containing and treating the virus. China, amazingly, began returning to normal with its markets being opened and industries in function as they claimed to treat the virus in 90 % of the patients. Whole world was happy to see this but with a scratch of suspicion.

Now, here are some reasons of suspecting China for a Corona virus conspiracy:

1) China announced that the virus originated from bats in the wet-market of Wuhan but investigation showed that the people in Wuhan didn't consumed bats due to which there was no sale of bats in its market. There has not been any satisfactory answer from China about the origin of the virus since then.

2) A Chinese opthalmologist (working as a physician) named Dr. Li Wenliang , was pressured not to speak or warn about the virus publicly after he found that one patient was dead due to it in Wuhan Central Hospital in December, 2019. The doctor died on February 7, 2020.

3) The Wuhan city with a level-IV microbiological research laboratory of an international repute, The Wuhan Institute of Virology, and it also being the epicentre for the virus raises eyebrows.

4) The virus spread to countries far-off from China like USA, Spain, Italy and UK which are at a distance of about 11859, 9859, 8659 and 8777 km, respectively, from Wuhan but didn't affect the people living in Shanghai and Beijing in a major manner which are a mere 839 and 1153 km, respectively, from Wuhan.

5) The disagreement of China to allow the permission to USA, UK and Australia for a thorough investigation regarding the origin of virus in Wuhan is suspicious.

6) USA and China have been in an economic cold war since long. USA has the most number of mortality due to this virus. Also, China has started to purchase majority shares in American companies that are suffering due to the virus. Is this a modus operandi of China to become a new economic super-power of the world ?

7) Ally of China, the North Korea and Russia, have had negligible number of corona cases while South Korea, the immediate neighbour of North Korea, has a far greater number of corona cases. Did the ally countries know about the virus before rest of the world and already took protective measures?

8) When the whole world is fighting with the virus, China has normalized and has even removed lockdown from Wuhan, the epicentre. Did they already had a vaccine for it before the spread of the virus or they know some magical spell to eliminate the disease ?

9) Did China influenced even the WHO for not warning the world regarding the virus-efficacy ?

10) About 21 million SIM cards in China being blocked or in not-in-use-now condition within last 4 months raises serious questions about China hiding the real death numbers of its people to the world. Is it trying to protect a secret ?

What's that ????

These were a few questions that came to my mind during my research regarding the whole story. As of now, USA has ceased its whole funding to WHO till an investigation regarding their inefficient job in the case of virus is over. Many countries of the world are ,may be, using their secret services to know the truth of the 'Chinese-virus'. Almost all developed countries have criticized China but Russia has come-over to the Chinese defense. China may face a major backlash on international forums after it all ends, but with Russia on its side, it would slip-away easily.

The spread is decreasing in India, primarily due to lockdown, and it is hoped that the virus would subside soon like other pandemics in the past. Doctors, bankers, policemen, farmers and other essential service providers need to be thanked whole-heartedly for their efforts during the times of this crisis. Even after the virus subsides, it would leave the wounds of huge death-tolls and a failed economy in many countries of the world with many unanswered questions with the major one being- Why was the world subjected to this and who did it ?