Wednesday, January 04, 2012
Harish Bhatt
Police in India say they have arrested six foreign nationals suspected of defrauding hundreds of people using text message and email scams.
Scam victims were duped after being told they had won a lottery.
Authorities seized 14 laptops, seven memory sticks and 23 mobile phones, as well as fake documents and cash.
The arrests come after security firm Kaspersky reported that India now sent more spam than any other country in the world.
Police said the six men, all Nigerian, would be remanded in custody until 12 January.
The arrests signal attempts to crack down on a growing cybercrime problem in the region.
Mumbai-based internet security specialist Vijay Mukhi said poor enforcement of laws meant spammers could act with impunity.
"We have an Information Technology Act that was introduced in 2000. But we don't have any convictions under it and it's silent on spam," he said.
"If I'm a spammer, I would rather spam from India to India and the rest of world because nothing will happen to me."
In its report, Kaspersky said 14.8% of all spam email sent in the three months prior to the end of September had originated in India, BBC reported.
