Top Scams Of 2025: Dabba Trading, Digital Arrests, Deepfake Menace, And More

With the closing bell for 2025 just days away from being rung, it is safe to say that it has been one hell of a rollercoaster ride for everyone. From wars, to space missions, to unprecedented celebrity engagements, what hasn't 2025 made us witness?

World Cup dreams were achieved, gender roles broken, and so were certain weddings. India's clocked a high GDP growth despite the 'force' being against it, start ups boomed, crorepatis sculpted, and some of those crores... extorted.

Sorry to break the sunny streak, but 2025 had a more unwelcome, hostile and dangerous front gaining momentum, creeping up discreetly, and fooling even the smartest of us — digital scams.

From 'Digital Arrests' scams to 'Deep Fake Videos' of politicians and celebrities extorting money for investment schemes and from Myanmar's slave compound scam to Crypto scams, 2025 saw it all. Here is a brief run down of some of the biggest and sharpest scams in 2025:

Many fraudulent schemes may have fumbled over the last 12 months, but digital arrest scams remained rock solid, believable, and scary.

A digital arrest scam is an online scam used by fraudsters to falsely accuse their victims of unlawful activity. These cybercriminals pose as government officials from customs, the income tax department or even central investigative agencies. They then demand money or ask you to provide sensitive personal details.

Earlier in the year, a family from Noida became the victim of this horrific 'digital arrest' fraud and lost over Rs 1 crore. Not just the loss of money, the entire family underwent severe mental trauma as all the members were literally held captive for five days by fraudsters impersonating public officials.

There were multiple instances of such scams. One being a hefty sum of Rs 58 crore being extorted from a 72-year-old businessman in Mumbai in a 'digital arrest' scam in October executed by fraudsters posing as ED and CBI officials, police had said.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) uncovered details of a chilling transnational crime nexus.

Indian nationals were being illegally trafficked of into “cybercrime scam compounds” located in Myanmar. In these compounds, they were held captive and forced to run call centre scams at their captors' behest.

While the investigations began in October, arrests weren't made till much later.

Dabba trading is an illegal activity that takes place outside official stock exchanges. It avoids regulation and does not go through the legal settlement process, putting investor money at serious risk. Engaging in such trading is a punishable offence under Indian law. Offenders can face up to 10 years in prison, a fine of up to Rs 25 crore, or both.

Earlier in the year, SEBI cracked down on an unregistered group called 'Close Friends Traders', that allegedly conducted illegal 'dabba trading'.

With the banes and boons of artificial intelligence (AI) bestowed upon humanity abundantly, scammers set out to make the most of them. Deepfake videos of well-known personalities, asking people to invest in certain 'trusted schemes' surfaced all over the internet.

The campaign was a well-coordinated, and multi-layered investment fraud and featured the fraudulent use of prominent national figures, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Infosys Founder Narayana Murthy and his wife Sudha Murty.

Topping it off with the newest fraud in the Indian market, the accused of a cryptocurrency-linked Ponzi and multi-level marketing scam launched and operated a series of fraudulent cryptocurrency-linked MLM and Ponzi schemes through platforms, including Korvio, Voscrow, DGT, Hypenext and A-Global.

Unsuspecting investors were drawn in with promises of exceptionally high returns. In reality, these were unregulated, self-created platforms that functioned like classic Ponzi schemes, with money from new investors being used to make payouts to earlier participants.

According to the CBI, the scam duped investors of nearly Rs 2,300 crore.