Jaipur, July 22 -- State police data has shown that over Rs.387 crore was lost to perpetrators of cybercrime in the first six-and-a-half months of 2026. The data also affirmed the presence of an eastern corridor running through Jaipur, Alwar, Bharatpur, Jodhpur and Dausa toward the Delhi-NCR border, as a significant hub for cybercrime in the state. As per the data, cybercrime cases registered up to July 12, 2026 logged proceeds up to Rs.387 crore. The corresponding figure for all of 2025 was Rs.768 crore, a sharp spike from the Rs.354 crore lost in 2023. In 2024, a total of Rs.795 crore was lost as proceeds of cybercrime, showed the data. Investment scams alone accounted for three out of every four rupees lost statewide in 2025, showed the data. Complaints climbed 64% between 2023 and 2025, from 77,880 to 1,27,782, while FIRs more than doubled, from 237 to 492. Cybercriminals swindled Indians out of more than Rs.22,000 crore for the second year running, official data shows. Nationally, the numbers have exploded over the past four years: Indians reported losing Rs.2,290 crore to cyber-financial crime in 2022; by 2024 that figure had rocketed to Rs.22,848 crore. Officials point to a different number as the real story: the "lien percentage," or the share of stolen money that police and banks manage to freeze before it vanishes for good. That figure has climbed from under 8% in 2022 to nearly 20% today - roughly Rs.4,320 crore frozen in 2025 alone - credited to faster coordination between banks, payment platforms and cyber cells. Funds placed on lien grew even faster, up 339% since 2023, and refunds to victims rose nearly tenfold to over Rs.10 crore in 2025. Fraud amounts fell by about Rs.27.86 crore between 2024 and 2025 even as frozen funds rose by roughly Rs.65.54 crore - evidence, police argue, of quicker action returning money to victims. In April 2026, Rajasthan ranked seventh nationally for funds placed on lien, showed data accessed by HT. A senior official said a national heat map identifies recurring cybercrime hotspots across the country, including Deeg, Alwar, Jaipur and Jodhpur in Rajasthan, alongside districts in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Bihar, Jharkhand, Delhi, Karnataka and Kerala. Within Rajasthan, hotspot maps from March through mid-July 2026 show the crime concentrated heavily in the east - the Bharatpur-Alwar-Jaipur-Dausa corridor toward Delhi-NCR - with a secondary cluster around Jodhpur, Nagaur and Udaipur. The state logged 64,424 hotspot flags in 2024, 60,895 in 2025, and 23,799 in the first half of 2026 alone. A breakdown of complaint types from 2025 reveals a gap between how often a scam is reported and how much it costs victims. Investment scams alone account for 75% of every rupee lost, though they're just 36% of complaints. Digital Arrest scams - where victims are tricked into believing they're under police or court investigation - account for 8% of losses and 6% of complaints. Credit card fraud is the mirror image: 27% of complaints but only 7% of losses, while sextortion drives 18% of complaints against just 4% of losses - pointing to smaller payouts spread across far more victims. E-commerce fraud and APK/malware crimes make up the rest, at 5% and 1% of losses. Comparing December 2025 to May 2026, the shift is notable. In December, cheque withdrawals led at 36.55%, followed by ATM withdrawals at 24.90%. By May 2026, cheque withdrawal had dropped out of the top spot and ATM withdrawal had jumped to 32.24%, with wallets close behind at 23.07% - likely because banks have tightened monitoring on cheque cash-outs, pushing fraudsters toward ATMs and wallets instead. Hotspot maps for both withdrawal types still centre on the same Jaipur-Bharatpur-Alwar corridor. Rajasthan has significantly strengthened its cyber policing infrastructure over the past three years, emerging as one of the country's most proactive states in tackling online fraud, a senior police official said. The Rajasthan Cyber Crime Branch, set up at Police Headquarters in February 2023, now operates under a Director General of Police, an Additional DG, a DIG, an SP and 196 personnel. The 1930 cyber helpline runs 53 round-the-clock lines, with plans to expand to 60, and the state has 43 dedicated cyber police stations across all 41 districts, with six more awaiting approval. The build-out has shown results: the helpline's call answer rate rose from 71.69% in 2025 to 92.29% by mid-2026. Since January 2026, an automated Zero e-FIR system for frauds exceeding Rs 5 lakh has generated 438 automatic FIRs, while operations such as Cyber Shield, Vajra Prahar, Antivirus and Mule Hunter removed 9,744 fraudulent accounts, websites and apps this year. Cyber expert Mukesh Choudhary cautioned that the real scale of cybercrime in Rajasthan is likely far greater than official figures suggest, since many complaints referred by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) have yet to become formal FIRs. He also pointed to capacity gaps: the department lacks dedicated cybercrime consultants or a chief consultant for strategic leadership, and a Rs 50 crore allocation made in 2022 to strengthen prevention and investigation has gone unutilised. Citing low FIR registration, weak detection and poor conviction rates, he said many investigating officers still lack the expertise to collect and present electronic evidence in court, undercutting prosecutions....