It has been reported that fraudsters are making international spoofed calls displaying Indian mobile numbers to Indian citizens for committing cyber-crime and financial frauds. These calls appear to be originating within India but are made by the cyber-criminals from abroad by manipulating the calling line identity (CLI). Such international spoofed calls have been misused in recent cases of fake digital arrests, FedEx scams, drugs/narcotics in courier, impersonation as government and police officials, disconnections of mobile numbers by DoT/TRAI officials, etc.
In this backdrop, Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and telecom service providers (TSPs) have devised a system to identify and block such incoming international spoofed calls from reaching any Indian telecom subscriber. Now directions have been issued to the TSPs for blocking of such incoming international spoofed calls.
The incoming international spoofed calls with Indian landline numbers are being already blocked by the TSPs as per the directions issued by DoT.
As safety and security of the users is an integral part of vision of Digital India, DoT has already taken many initiatives including citizen centric Sanchar Saathi portal (https://sancharsaathi.gov.in/) to protect telecom users, the Ministry of Communications said in a statement.
Despite best efforts, there may still be some fraudsters who succeed through other means. For such calls, the ministry appealed citizens to report any suspected fraud communications at Chakshu facility on Sanchar Saathi.
