Police Rap Banks For Cybercrime Response Delays

The Cyberabad police, during a high-level coordination meeting with bankers at the Cyberabad CP Office today, told them that delays in banking responses were severely hampering cybercrime investigations.

Commissioner of Police Avinash Mohanty described cyber fraud as one of the most serious threats in the region, and that citizens were losing more money to online scams than to traditional crimes including robbery and snatching. He urged banks - especially large institutions such as SBI - to establish centralised cyber cells for quicker complaint handling and better victim support.

Police highlighted repeated issues, including slow responses to official emails, delayed account-freeze confirmations and abnormal delays in processing defreeze requests. Banks were reminded that once an account was frozen, no debit activity should take place.

Banks were also instructed to share complete account statements in spreadsheet format, strengthen KYC checks, monitor mule accounts, and set up dedicated cybercrime response desks with updated nodal officer lists. All freeze, defreeze and information requests needed to be cleared within one to three days, the police said.