The Pulse | Security | South Asia

India’s Cross-Border Cyber Scams Against the US and the West

In poor areas such as Jamtara and Mewat, cyber scams have become an important source of household income.

India has become one of the largest global sources of cross-border cyber scams. Its significance extends well beyond the economic losses involved.

Research from the Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur estimates that Indian call-center fraud causes approximately $10 billion in annual losses worldwide, with victims concentrated in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. Cryptocurrency “pig-butchering” schemes inside India alone exceeded $3.6 billion in losses in 2024, and losses directly traced to India from U.S. victims between 2023 and 2025 reached $42 million – only the traceable fraction.

Geographically, the Indian scam landscape shows a dual-track structure. A decentralized rural track, epitomized by the Jamtara–Mewat crime belt, accounts for the bulk of the crime. Bharatpur in Rajasthan records the nation’s highest cybercrime rate at 18 percent of reported cases; the Mewat region spanning Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Haryana accounts for 11 percent, and these areas, together with Jamtara, source roughly 80 percent of the country’s cases.

The Mewat model requires no technical skill – only a phone and a bank account – with operators as young as 12 and more than 500 new scams launched daily.

Four criminal methods dominate the industry. Technical support scams, the most iconic export of Indian cybercrime, involve operators impersonating Microsoft or Apple staff, manufacturing fake “virus” or “account intrusion” alerts to lure victims into granting remote access before draining their bank accounts.

As FBI Agent Jeremy Capello has observed, the core mechanism is manufactured technological panic. Government-agency impersonation sees scammers posing as IRS, Social Security, or immigration officials, demanding payment to “clear the charges.” A 2022 U.S. District Court indictment in the Northern District of Georgia revealed multiple Indian call centers routing tens of millions of such calls to American consumers. A newer “digital arrest” scam, in which scammers brandish fake police uniforms and forged warrants on video calls to demand transfers, is now expanding overseas: over 92,000 victims were identified inside India in 2024 alone.

Behind these methods lies a sophisticated infrastructure. The networks route SIP-protocol VoIP calls through multiple servers to obscure their origins, rely on roughly 850,000 mass-purchased “money mule” accounts opened with false Know Your Customer or KYC documents, and move funds across borders through the hawala underground remittance system and cryptocurrencies. An analysis by India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) of more than 15,000 IP addresses found some masterminds based in Southeast Asia while Indian personnel handle calling and account operations – evidence of a cross-continental division of labor.

What makes the Indian case distinctive, however, is the grey connection between the scam syndicates and the political and institutional system. In economically backward areas such as Jamtara and Mewat, cyber scams have become a main source of household income, and local politicians protect voters – and thereby protect votes. Randheer Singh, a member of the legislative assembly of the Bharatiya Janata Party for Jamtara and a former minister, stated in a recorded interview that he frequently has to “make recommendations” to the police to secure the release of arrested voters, threatening to surround the police station if his constituency’s residents are harassed. The arrangement provides scammers with “electoral asylum” without legislators ever participating in the fraud directly.

Institutional complicity extends into the banking and telecommunications networks the scams depend on. In January 2025, Hyderabad police disclosed that a 60-year-old woman had lent her NGO’s bank account to a scam network for a commission of $201,100. When police sought an arrest warrant, ten lawyers appeared in court to defend her.

In February 2025, Indore police documented a father-son pair from an Islamic seminary lending their institution’s accounts for a 50 percent commission. “Ghost SIM cards” provide another conduit: by November 2024, Indian authorities had blocked approximately 669,000 cybercrime-linked SIMs, and........

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