Pakistani scamsters targeting citizens through WhatsApp calls; Odisha cops issue advisory

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Police has urged people not to respond to WhatsApp calls from numbers starting with +92 country code.

The cops have claimed that the numbers starting with +92 country code belong to people from Pakistan.

“Some fraudsters are using the numbers starting with +92 to trick people and steal their money. The fraudsters are using the photos of some police officials on their WhatsApp profiles to cheat people,” said Odisha Police in a Twitter (X) post today.

The fraudsters, posing as police officials, usually threaten people to frame them in cases of crime and extort money from them, said the Odisha police while elaborating the modus operandi of the online scamsters.

The Union Ministry of Home Affairs had earlier asked people to avoid phone calls from unknown numbers starting with +92 country code as part of its cyber security initiative.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has also asked the people promptly report any such fraudulent communications by accessing Sanchar Saathi portal.