NEW DELHI: Cases of cybercrime jumped by nearly 18% from 86,420 in 2023 to 1,01,928 in 2024, with fraud emerging as the biggest motive, the NCRB report has revealed.According to the report, 73,987 cases of fraud — including financial frauds, computer-related offenses and cheating — were registered across the country during the year, followed by cases related to sexual exploitation (3,190), extortion (2,488), causing disrepute (2,231) and personal revenge (1,850). Over 15,300 cases were marked under the ‘others’ category. Women were the victims in over 18,600 cases and in 1,753 cases the victims were minors.Telangana saw the highest number of such cases (27,230), marking a spike of nearly 50% over previous year, when 18,236 cyber offenses were recorded in the state. More than 70 cases per one lakh population were recorded in Telangana. Karnataka (21,003) saw the secondhighest number of cases being registered, followed by UP and Maharashtra.Nearly 35,000 cases were registered in metropolitan cities in 2024, up from 34,000 in 2023 and 24,000 in 2022, the data showed.Combined with over one lakh pending cases from previous years, enforcement agencies faced the challenge of probing over two lakh cases in 2024, of which final reports were submitted in over 53,000 cases (31.9%), while alleged criminals were chargesheeted in nearly 25,000 cases. Nearly 1.2 lakh cases, or 61.6%, were pending investigation with agencies.About 75,000 cases were pending trial before courts at the start of 2024, and investigating agencies sent more than 25,000 new cases during the year.
