ISLAMABAD – The Cybercrime Wing of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA)witnessed an unprecedented hike in online crimes during 2020 as it receivedfive times more complaints than the previous year.

The year 2020 had been a challenging period for the FIA Cybercrime Wing dueto the unprecedented hike in cybercrime reporting, according to theofficial data of the agency.

Around 50 percent increase has been recorded in complaints about onlinefinancial crimes, harassment, women harassment, and child pornography in2020 than in the previous year. The data shows that overall cybercrimereporting increased almost five times as compared to the previous year.

The total complaints lodged at the Cybercrime Wing for year 2020 were94,227 which were mainly relating to financial fraud, harassment, stalkingand unauthorized access.

However, the wing disposed of 0.1 million complaints in the earlier filedcomplaints during 2020.

To deal with the increased workload, the wing has established a complaintmanagement unit at each reporting centre of the Cybercrime Wing.

Besides this, specialized investigation units have been established to dealwith financial crime, harassment, defamation, women harassment, childpornography and high-profile cases. These units successfully disposed of9,073 enquiries and registered 374 cases during 2020. The number ofenquiries is almost 50 percent more than 2019 and the number of registeredcases is 100 percent more than the previous year.

The wing launched a special campaign against child exploitation. Itregistered as many as 24 FIRs (first information reports), while 26 arrestswere made and three gangs involved in child pornography and exploitationwere busted during the last year.

The wing has strengthened international cooperation with Interpol, nationalcrime bureau, Facebook and WhatsApp and exchange of information sawconsiderable improvement with total requests received were 214 andresponded 191 during 2020.

The wing intensified its field operations by arresting 621 accused, 22gangs and 20,000 electronic gadgets were recovered from them.

As many 22 accused involved in BISP (Benazir Income Support Programme)fraud were arrested during the last year and Rs 4 million were recoveredfrom then after registration of 16 cases and 95 enquiries.

To improve its capability and enhance capacity building, the wing conductedits internal and external trainings. In addition to that, as many 400 newstaff members were added to manpower and four new centres of cybercrimewere opened during 2020.