Centre issues directions for blocking incoming international spoofed calls displaying 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.