Bhubaneswar, June 29 -- OdishaCrime Branch blocked 50 fraudulent hotel booking websites over the past week. This crackdown follows complaints received via the 1930 helpline. Hoteliers, government departments, police moved to protect lakhs of devotees arriving for the Rath Yatra festival on 16 July.

According to the Times Of India, over the past year, at least 30 tourists were swindled out of nearly Rs 5 lakh through fake online listings in Odisha. The scam reportely intensified recently, with four pilgrims collectively losing about Rs 35,000 in the last two weeks.

Cyber criminals were reportedly cloning legitimate hotel platforms to secure prominent positions in online search results in Puri. These replicas were used to dupe travellers ...