Govt. directs telcos to block incoming international spoofed calls

The government has directed telecom operators to block all incoming international spoofed calls that display Indian mobile numbers

The government has directed telecom operators to block all incoming international spoofed calls that display Indian mobile numbers, an official statement said on Sunday.

It has been reported that fraudsters were making international spoofed calls displaying Indian mobile numbers to Indian citizens and committing cyber-crime and financial frauds, the Department of Telecom (DoT) said.

Such calls appeared to be originating within India but were being made by cyber-criminals from abroad by manipulating the calling line identity (CLI), and had been misused in recent cases of fake digital arrests, ‘FedEx scams’, drugs or narcotics in courier, impersonations as government and police officials, disconnections of mobile numbers by DoT or Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) officials, etc.

"DoT and Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) have devised a system to identify and block such international spoofed calls from reaching any Indian telecom subscriber. Now directions have been issued to the TSPs for blocking such incoming international spoofed calls," the statement said.

Incoming international spoofed calls with Indian landline numbers were already being blocked by the TSPs, according to the directions issued by the DoT.

"Despite best efforts, there may still be some fraudsters who succeed through other means. For such calls, you can help everybody by reporting such suspected fraud communications at the Chakshu facility on Sanchar Saathi," the statement said.

Last week, the DoT issued directives to telecom operators to carry out immediate re-verification of 6.8 lakh mobile numbers within 60 days that are suspected to have been obtained using invalid, non-existent or fake documents. The department has flagged around 6.80 lakh mobile connections as potentially fraudulent after advanced AI-driven analysis.