Karnataka Cybercrime Helpline 1930 Sees Spike In Calls From 1.3 L In 2022 To 24L In 2025 As Fraud Losses Surge

Recent Karnataka Police reports have revealed a shocking surge in calls to the national cybercrime helpline number 1930, showing that calls jumped from 1.3 lakh in 2022 to 24 lakh in 2025. Of the total calls made last year, only 14,391
cases were officially filed, suggesting a need for more awareness regarding the formal registering of cybercrimes.

In 2025, callers reported losses of Rs 2,640 crore, which is more than 20 times higher than the amount lost in 2022 (Rs 113 crore). In 2023, the losses rose to Rs 562 crore, and it soared to Rs 2,396 crore in 2024, indicating a sharp and steady rise in cyberfraud during the period. It also shows that scammers aggressively targeted huge amounts from the victims 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 The Times of India.

"In 2025, cybercrime cases fell because of two issues awareness among public and police actions like deactivating the mobile numbers of the suspects," he added. Further, the official data shows that over the years, the victims have started reporting the crimes within 60 to 90 minutes of the offence, which is often referred to as 'the golden hour.' This quicker response has helped the police to promptly freeze funds in the bank accounts of the suspects, preventing further financial losses for victims.

Notably, the amount of funds frozen has also risen sharply over the years. In 2022, authorities froze Rs 8 crore, which increased to Rs 66 crore in 2023. The figure climbed further to Rs 226 crore in 2024 and nearly doubled to Rs 436 crore in 2025. In a step to enhance digital crime prevention, the Karnataka State Police updated its cybercrime helpline 1930 last year with an AI-powered WebBOT, featuring a self-service complaint registration system activated via SMS, multilingual support and several advanced tools to assist both citizens and investigators. With a multilingual IVR system supporting Kannada, English and Hindi, the WebBOT has real-time suspect and victim profiling tools to detect
fraud patterns.

Over the past few years, officials have constantly tried to raise awareness about cybercrimes and urged victims to come forward and lodge official complaints at their nearest police stations. However, many people still believe that just making a call to the 1930 helpline is enough. Officials point out that people who lose relatively smaller amounts often hesitate to visit a police station to file a formal complaint. In other cases, people feel too proud or embarrassed to admit that they have lost money and refrain from reporting such incidents.