Key Points
- Digital arrest scams fell 67 per cent following awareness campaigns including PM Modi’s radio programme
- Investment scams now dominate cybercrime volume as fraudsters shift tactics
- Real-time deepfakes during video calls have cost companies millions of dollars
Investment scams are replacing digital arrest fraud as India’s primary cybercrime threat, with criminals adapting faster than public awareness campaigns can respond, according to a senior Maharashtra government official.
Brijesh Singh, principal secretary, Directorate of Information and Public Relations, Government of Maharashtra, said digital arrest scams had declined by 67 per cent following sustained awareness efforts, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s warnings during his Mann Ki Baat radio programme. However, the decline in one fraud category has coincided with a surge in another.
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“If you look at the total volume of cybercrime, the focus has shifted to investment scams,” Singh said.
Singh who was speaking at a recently concluded Global Fintech Fest 2026 in Mumbai cautioned that awareness campaigns alone would prove insufficient against increasingly sophisticated fraud. “Awareness alone cannot outpace fraud, which keeps adapting and getting complex,” he said.
AI-powered attacks
Singh warned that agentic AI, a category of artificial intelligence systems capable of carrying out tasks with limited human intervention, was fundamentally changing how cyberattacks were organised and executed. Unlike conventional AI tools that require human direction at each step, agentic AI can plan and execute multi-stage operations autonomously.
“Attacks once requiring a chain of human collaborators are now executed autonomously, adapting in real time. It’s time that the defensive systems also keep pace with such crime,” Singh said.
He argued that cybersecurity should receive the same priority as digital public infrastructure, warning that protecting individual organisations would not be enough to counter fraud networks operating across multiple platforms. Cybercriminals can exploit weaknesses across telecom networks, banking systems, mobile applications and social media platforms simultaneously.
The existing approach, where organisations concentrate on securing their own systems, was inadequate for dealing with such interconnected threats, Singh said. He called for a coordinated approach to cybersecurity across the entire digital ecosystem.
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Mule accounts
Singh raised concerns about the use of legitimate bank accounts to move money obtained through cybercrime. A mule account is a bank account used to receive or transfer fraudulently obtained funds, often making it difficult for investigators to trace the original beneficiary of a crime.
He said conventional Know Your Customer (KYC) checks, the identity verification procedures banks conduct when opening an account, could not guarantee that an account would remain free from misuse after onboarding.
“Even good accounts can turn mules despite clean KYC records at onboarding,” Singh said.
He cited the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub’s Digital Payments Intelligence Platform as a step towards continuous, risk-based monitoring of suspicious transactions.
The platform is designed to flag potentially fraudulent activity on an ongoing basis rather than relying solely on one-time verification at account opening.
Deepfake evidence
Singh warned that generative AI had made sophisticated impersonation techniques accessible to criminals at scale. Fraudsters can now use real-time deepfakes during video calls to impersonate company executives or other trusted individuals and persuade employees to transfer money.
According to Singh, companies have lost millions of dollars through such attacks. A deepfake is synthetic media, typically video or audio, generated using artificial intelligence to make it appear that a real person said or did something they did not.
He identified an additional concern for investigators around the growing difficulty of establishing whether digital evidence is genuine. Without reliable systems for verifying the origin and authenticity of digital content, genuine recordings can be dismissed as AI-generated, potentially complicating criminal investigations and prosecution.
Your Questions, Answered
What are investment scams in cybercrime?
Investment scams are fraud schemes where criminals convince victims to invest money in fake opportunities, often promising high returns. They have become India’s dominant cybercrime category as digital arrest fraud has declined.
What is a digital arrest scam?
A digital arrest scam involves fraudsters impersonating law enforcement officials, claiming the victim is under investigation and demanding payment to avoid arrest. These scams fell 67 per cent following government awareness campaigns.
What is a mule account?
A mule account is a legitimate bank account used to receive or transfer money obtained through fraudulent activities. Criminals recruit account holders or compromise accounts to move stolen funds, making it difficult for investigators to trace the original beneficiary.
How are deepfakes used in financial fraud?
Criminals use real-time deepfakes during video calls to impersonate company executives or trusted individuals. They then convince employees to transfer money, with companies losing millions of dollars to such attacks according to Maharashtra official Brijesh Singh.