India’s cybercrime crisis deepened sharply in 2025 as financial losses surged to an estimated ₹1.2 lakh crore, more than five times higher than the previous year, exposing a system that can freeze stolen money quickly but rarely delivers arrests, refunds, or convictions.
While authorities highlight the success of the national cybercrime helpline in freezing over ₹5,400 crore, victims and experts say the response increasingly stops there — creating a dangerous gap between emergency intervention and actual justice.
The result, investigators warn, is a model where crime adapts faster than enforcement, and victims face prolonged hardship while accused networks continue operating with minimal fear.
Freeze First, Justice Later — If at All
The current response to cyber fraud follows a predictable pattern. Victims are advised to report incidents immediately, leading to the freezing of bank accounts linked to suspicious transactions. This initial action is often swift and effective in preventing further losses.
But beyond that first step, progress frequently stalls.
Victims report repeated requests for documentation, multiple visits to banks and police offices, and long periods of silence once accounts are frozen. In most cases, there is no visible movement towards identifying or arresting the individuals behind the fraud.
Legal experts point out that freezing accounts is an administrative action, not an investigative outcome. Without follow-through — arrests, charge sheets, and prosecutions — criminal networks face little real risk.
Victims Under Scrutiny, Criminals Unchecked
A striking feature of many cybercrime cases is the imbalance in scrutiny.
Victims often find themselves questioned repeatedly, asked to justify transactions, and required to comply with complex procedures to recover their own money. Meanwhile, the actual beneficiaries of the fraud remain unidentified or untraceable.
In several cases reviewed by this newspaper, victims described feeling treated as suspects rather than complainants, while the accused effectively disappear once the funds move beyond the frozen account.
Cybercrime specialists say this inversion of accountability has consequences:
criminals treat account freezes as temporary setbacks, while victims endure prolonged stress, financial disruption, and uncertainty.
Rise of High-Value, High-Trauma Frauds
What distinguishes 2025 from earlier years is not just the scale of cybercrime, but its transformation.
Simple phishing and OTP scams have been eclipsed by high-pressure impersonation frauds, including so-called “Digital Arrest” schemes. In these cases, victims are contacted through video calls by fraudsters posing as law-enforcement or regulatory authorities.
Using forged documents, official-sounding language, and increasingly realistic AI-generated voices, scammers accuse victims of serious offences and isolate them for hours or days. Under sustained pressure, victims are instructed to transfer money to supposed “verification” or “secure” accounts.
Losses per incident are significantly higher, often wiping out savings accumulated over decades.
An Organised Financial Pipeline
Investigators describe today’s cybercrime ecosystem as highly organised, operating through a structured financial pipeline rather than individual acts of deception.
Stolen money is routed through multiple intermediary accounts — commonly referred to as mule accounts — before being converted into cryptocurrency or withdrawn through informal channels. These accounts are easily replaced, allowing networks to resume operations almost immediately after a freeze.
Without timely arrests or prosecutions, experts warn, this system becomes self-sustaining.
Bank Freezes Without Closure May Be Fueling Crime
Ironically, the emphasis on freezing funds without corresponding legal outcomes may be encouraging further cybercrime.
Criminal groups now factor account freezes into their operations, replacing compromised channels while continuing recruitment and targeting. The low probability of arrest or conviction means that the risk-reward balance remains heavily skewed in favour of offenders.
Conviction rates in cybercrime cases remain negligible, according to available data, reinforcing the perception that cybercrime is a low-risk, high-return activity.
Trust at Stake
Beyond financial losses, experts warn of a growing trust deficit.
India’s digital economy depends on confidence in online payments, remote verification, and electronic governance. When citizens experience a system that can stop money but cannot restore it or punish wrongdoing, faith in those systems erodes.
This erosion of trust carries long-term consequences that extend beyond individual victims.
Calls for Structural Change
Legal and cybersecurity experts argue that urgent reforms are needed, including:
Time-bound investigation milestones
Automatic refund mechanisms after freezes
Dedicated cybercrime courts
Clear accountability for investigative delays
Without these measures, they warn, cybercrime will continue to outpace enforcement — not because the tools do not exist, but because follow-through does not.
As one victim summed it up:
“The money was frozen. The criminal moved on. And we were left fighting the system.”
