A steady rise in digital fraud has pushed Karnataka’s national cybercrime helpline into overdrive, with call volumes and financial losses climbing sharply over the last 3 years.
Recent state police data shows calls to helpline 1930 surged from 1.3 lakh in 2022 to 24 lakh in 2025. However, only 14,391 formal cases were registered last year, pointing to a major gap between reporting fraud and filing official complaints.
The financial impact has grown even faster. In 2022, reported losses stood at Rs 113 crore. This increased to Rs 562 crore in 2023, jumped to Rs 2,396 crore in 2024, and reached Rs 2,640 crore in 2025—over 20 times higher than 2022 levels. Police data indicates that cybercriminals have consistently targeted higher-value frauds year after year.
“The cybercrime helpline number 1930 started functioning from Dec 2021. We request cybercrime victims to dial 1930 at the earliest and share all documents. A delay in filing a complaint helps miscreants withdraw the money from the mule bank accounts,” director-general and inspector-general of police (DGIGP) MA Saleem said to a newspaper.
He added, “In 2025, cybercrime cases fell because of two issues awareness among public and police actions like deactivating the mobile numbers of the suspects.”
Officials noted that victims are now reporting crimes faster, often within 60–90 minutes, known as the “golden hour.” This quick response has helped police freeze suspect accounts more effectively. Funds frozen rose from Rs 8 crore in 2022 to Rs 66 crore in 2023, Rs 226 crore in 2024, and nearly doubled to Rs 436 crore in 2025.
To strengthen prevention, Karnataka Police upgraded helpline 1930 with an AI-powered WebBOT in 2024. The system offers SMS-based self-service complaint registration, multilingual IVR support in Kannada, English, and Hindi, and real-time profiling tools to detect fraud patterns.
Despite ongoing awareness efforts, police say many victims wrongly assume calling 1930 alone is enough. Some hesitate to visit police stations over smaller losses, while others avoid reporting due to embarrassment.
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