Poonam Sharma
Cybercrime is no longer the exclusive domain of Hollywood thrillers or shadowy international syndicates. It is creeping into our neighborhoods, infecting small towns, and finding eager recruits among teenagers and young adults. The recent bust by Uttarakhand’s Special Task Force (STF) is a stark warning. The next big wave of crime may not come from gun-wielding gangsters, but from young people armed with laptops and a Wi-Fi connection.
The STF’s cybercrime wing arrested three Bareilly youths, 19-year-old Mohammad Rizwan, Sudama Diwakar, and Mohammad Faraz, on August 5, 2025, on charges of breaching the digital platform of a school, SchoolPad. Their supposed motive: to extort students and parents. The team of investigators claims that the trio created a false app, propagated misleading messages, and stole payment information and login credentials.
The arrests turned up four phones, two bank passbooks, and three SIM cards. Initial interrogation indicated that these teenagers had been procuring hacking tools and scripts from dark web markets and Telegram-based hacking communities.
It’s not a one-off “local” swindle—it’s a peek into a thriving global underworld where teenage hackers just graduating from high school are operating in the same malicious space as experienced cybercrooks.
A Worldwide Trend With Homegrown Faces
India does not stand alone in combating this wave of youth cybercrime. INTERPOL’s 2024 report states that 40% more cybercriminals between the ages of 18 and 25 have been identified over the last three years. Over half of them are cases of financial fraud and identity theft. Cybersecurity Ventures estimates that by 2030, cybercrime will cost the world a whopping $13 trillion a year—and a good chunk of that will be from “low-skilled but digitally empowered” young criminals.
At home, India’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) revealed in 2024 that 33% of all cybercrime suspects who were registered were between the ages of 16 and 25. The fastest-rising types? Phishing, social media account hijacking, and online gaming fraud. The COVID-19 pandemic’s move to online learning, as well as a boom in digital payments, has made it even simpler for these scammers to identify and target victims.
Why Are Young People Getting Caught Up in the Cybercrime Trap?
Experts attribute a poisonous second with temptation, ignorance, and systemic lag.
The promise of easy money – Social media is flooded with advertisements and posts that offer “make lakhs in 30 days” by doing simple online work, attracting computer-literate but money-desperate youth.
Ignorance of the law – Most are unaware that cyber-fraud has the same severe punishment as real-world crime.
Systemic lag – Law enforcement’s cyber capabilities are often a step behind offenders, giving young hackers a confidence boost that they can get away with it.
A senior cybersecurity analyst summed it up sharply: “It’s like putting a high-speed sports car in the hands of someone who’s never read the traffic rules.”
India’s Cybercrime Economy: A High-Speed Growth Story Nobody Wants
The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) has cautioned that the nation might lose more than ₹1.2 lakh crore to cybercrime next year. Scarily, ₹11,269 crore has already been lost in merely the first half of 2025.
There are reports of India losing ₹11,333 crore (approximately $1.3 billion) through Southeast Asia-related cyber fraud alone—most cases using young fraudsters. The victims range from a single bank account to an e-commerce platform, and even school networks, as seen in the case of Uttarakhand.
Globally, the World Economic Forum estimates that if cybercrime were a nation, it would represent the world’s third-largest economy. In 2024 alone, it accounted for an estimated $9 trillion in losses.
The Youth Factor: Speed, Anonymity, and Moral Blind Spots
Why are young hackers uniquely perilous?
Technological expertise without an ethical foundation – They might be able to code or hack a vulnerability, but are unaware of legal and ethical considerations.
The speed gap – Crime evolves faster than the police can keep up.
Institutional weakness – Colleges and schools seldom include cyber law, ethics, or the implications of cyber fraud in their curriculum.
This pairing converts young curiosity into a would-be criminal pipeline. And in contrast to physical crime, which must be executed in the presence of others and with attendant risk, cybercrime provides anonymity, global access, and the perception of security.
Global Heatmap: The Hot Zones of Cybercrime
The international cybercrime “heatmap” has dense concentrations in the United States, Europe, and China—technology-developed countries in which criminals enjoy high levels of tools and markets. But the highest growth rates occur today in Asia, Africa, and Latin America’s high- and middle-income countries, where high-speed digital uptake combines with poor cyber defenses.
INTERPOL observes that approximately 40% of the world’s cybercrime population is below the age of 30. Between the years 2024 and 2025, young offenders grew at the highest rate in almost every region.
The Hidden Costs: Not Just Money
Whereas the economic loss is staggering, so is the human toll. According to data from NCRB, cybercrimes against minors—varying from stalking on the internet to pornography and cyberbullying—increased by 32% in 2022. A global study reveals that online perpetrators of a crime are usually between the ages of 20–24 years, with an average expenditure of 5–7 hours per day in cyberworlds.
When those virtual interactions become predatory or exploitative, the damage goes far beyond pilfered data or skimmed bank accounts—it redefines trust, privacy, and security in the digital world.
A Call to Action Now
Unless this cybercrime wave by young people is addressed today, it will have the potential to become the “next big pandemic”—silent, borderless, and much more difficult to control than conventional crime. Fixes will have to be swift, multi-layered, and concerted.
1. Cyber education
2. Law enforcement upgrades
3. Public awareness campaigns
The Uttarakhand arrests serve as an alarm call. Cybercrime is no longer an unfamiliar, far-off threat. It’s happening right in our backyards, committed not only by seasoned hackers in distant regions, but by teenagers we could pass on the street daily.
If India doesn’t want to become one of the world’s biggest incubators of cybercrime, it’s time to act now. Tomorrow’s hackers are already present—and they’re still teenagers.
