WhatsApp banned 9,400 accounts used for digital arrest scams in 2026: AG tells Supreme Court

Meta-owned WhatsApp informed the Supreme Court that it has banned over 9,400 accounts linked to digital arrest scams in India over a 12-week period beginning January 2026, as part of a targeted enforcement drive undertaken in coordination with government agencies..The disclosure was made through submissions placed before the Court through the Attorney General R Venkataramani in the ongoing suo motu proceedings concerning the rise of such scams, in which fraudsters impersonate law enforcement and judicial authorities to extort money from victims..WhatsApp’s investigation also yielded key intelligence on how these scams operate. It found that most accounts targeting Indian users were run from scam centres in Southeast Asia, particularly Cambodia.Fraudsters frequently used display names such as “Delhi Police,” “Mumbai HQ,” “CBI,” and “ATS Department,” along with official-looking logos as profile pictures to create a false sense of authority.The company has since deployed new enforcement tools, including:A logo-matching systems to detect impersonation. The logging of account display names (“pushnames”). A large language model trained to identify evolving scam patterns. It has also built a database of known scam assets to enable faster detection of repeat offenders..The company said the action followed a dedicated investigation launched in response to inputs from the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). .The company emphasised that its approach goes beyond acting on isolated complaints.“WhatsApp does not treat signals from investigation agencies and Government of India (GoI) as isolated, one-off reports. Each signal is treated as a seed to map and disrupt the entire criminal network.”.Notably, while government agencies had flagged around 3,800 scam-related accounts, the company’s internal processes led to a far wider crackdown. As a result, thousands of accounts involved in impersonation-based fraud were actioned.The investigation focused on scams where fraudsters impersonate law enforcement officials to coerce users into transferring money. Enforcement, the company said, targeted not only operators running such scams but also accounts promoting them within groups and channels, as well as linked assets sharing common behavioural or technical indicators such as reused media and overlapping infrastructure..Alongside enforcement, WhatsApp said it is rolling out product changes aimed at preventing fraud at the point of contact. These include: Warnings for suspicious first-time messages. Visibility of account age for unknown contacts. Suppression of profile photos in high-risk interactions. Enhanced caller information for unknown numbers..The company said these measures are expected to result in a “material and observable decline” in such scams on the platform.Further, WhatsApp, in its submission, acknowledged that while it can disrupt scam accounts and networks, many operations rely on off-platform infrastructure such as payments and international criminal networks."Many scams involve off-platform payment, coercion, and criminal infrastructure. WhatsApp can disrupt the accounts and networks; dismantling the underlying criminal operations requires coordinated multi-jurisdictional law enforcement action," said the report..The Supreme Court of India is examining the rise of digital arrest scams through suo motu proceedings.The suo motu case was registered in October 2025 after a couple, who are senior citizens, wrote to the Supreme Court stating that they were defrauded of ₹1.5 crore between September 1 and 16 by scammers impersonating as officials of the CBI, Intelligence Bureau and the judiciary.The fraudsters had contacted them through phone and video conference and showed them forged Supreme Court orders to coerce payment under threat of arrest.The Court took note of media reports suggesting that similar scams had occurred across several States and sought responses from the Central government and the CBI. It also requested the assistance of the Attorney General for India.The Court in December 2025 ordered a probe by CBI into the issue and also called for coordinated action at a pan-India level.The Court also sought the assistance of the Attorney General of India in the matter..Pursuant to the Court's directions, the agencies submitted details of their probe and action to the Attorney General..Besides the details about WhatsApp, other key developments placed before the Court and the Inter-Departmental Committee by the Attorney General include:The CBI re-registered three digital arrest cases that crossed the ₹10 crore loss threshold set by the Supreme Court. Two cases are from Gujarat and one from Delhi, with the Delhi case involving a fraud of ₹22.92 crore against a single victim. The RBI issued draft directions titled “Review of Framework of Limiting Customer Liability in Digital Transactions” for public consultation. Under the proposed framework, a victim who loses up to ₹50,000 in a fraudulent electronic banking transaction may be compensated up to 85 per cent of the net loss or ₹25,000, whichever is lower, with this relief available only once in a customer’s lifetime. The Department of Telecommunications informed the Committee that the proposed Biometric Identity Verification System for real-time cross-operator monitoring of SIM issuance remains at the proof-of-concept stage. It has sought at least three months to notify rules and a further six months for implementation, pushing full operationalisation to December 2026 at the earliest. The Committee directed telecom service providers to reduce the blocking timeline for suspicious SIM cards to 2–3 hours, noting that fraudulent calls often occur within the first few hours of activation. The Department of Revenue informed the Committee that no rules have yet been framed under Section 12AA of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, which could enable banks to temporarily freeze suspicious transactions. It indicated that framing such rules may take 30–45 days, subject to approvals. The RBI and I4C stated that a draft memorandum of understanding for sharing suspect registry data to strengthen the MuleHunter.AI tool is in its final stage and expected to be executed within a week of March 30, 2026. I4C noted that approximately 80–82 per cent of mule accounts used in cyber-enabled financial frauds operate for less than one day, highlighting the need for real-time intervention rather than post-facto measures. The RBI’s Integrated Ombudsman Scheme will, from July 1, 2026, raise the cap on compensation for consequential loss to ₹30 lakh and for mental harassment to ₹3 lakh per complaint. The Committee was also informed that a shared liability framework for high-value cases would require statutory backing across banks, telecom providers and intermediaries.