MP Cyber Fraud Losses Cross ₹1,000 Crore

• Madhya Pradesh residents have lost over ₹1,054 crore to cyber fraud in the past four years, but the state police have recovered less than 0.2% of the amount.
• The shocking figures were revealed in the state Assembly in response to a question from Congress MLA Jaivardhan Singh.
• The police’s case resolution rate has drastically declined from 70% in 2022 to 27% in 2025.

GG News Bureau
Bhopal, 5th Aug: Residents of Madhya Pradesh have lost a staggering ₹1,054 crore to cyber frauds over the past four years, a shocking revelation from the state home department that has highlighted the widening gap between the rise of digital crime and the state’s capacity to combat it.

The data, which was revealed in the state Assembly in response to a question from Congress MLA Jaivardhan Singh, shows that between May 1, 2021, and July 13, 2025, police were able to recover just ₹1.94 crore—a paltry 0.18 per cent of the total stolen amount.

Jaivardhan Singh, who termed the situation a “cyber emergency,” slammed the state government’s failure to curb the crimes. “The Prime Minister urges people to go digital, but the state cannot even retrieve one per cent of what was stolen,” he said.

The numbers reveal a “systemic breakdown” in the state’s cybercrime control apparatus. While a significant sum of ₹105 crore was frozen in suspect accounts during this period, only a fraction could be successfully recovered and returned to victims. Furthermore, of the 1,193 cyber fraud FIRs registered since 2020, charge sheets have been filed in only 585 cases, with the rest still pending or under investigation.

Social media misuse has emerged as the biggest avenue for digital crime, accounting for a majority of cases. In 2022, 542 out of 1,021 cybercrime cases were linked to social media abuse. This trend continued into 2023, 2024, and 2025, with social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp being used for cyberbullying, sextortion, and impersonation.

The youth remain the biggest targets of these crimes, making up between 65 to 76 per cent of all victims in the last four years. Despite the high number of victims, justice remains elusive, as the resolution rate for cases has plummeted from 70 per cent in 2022 to a mere 27 per cent in 2025.

The official data also confirms that banking and financial fraud constitute the second-largest share of cybercrime cases in the state. The numbers indicate that without a concerted effort to upgrade resources and train personnel, the gap between crimes committed and justice delivered will continue to widen.