Kathmandu, February 13 Metropolitan Police Crime Division recently arrested a foreign national and a Nepali woman, who were living as a couple, from Pepsicola, Kathmandu, for swindling several persons. Obotar Alkagni, 32, of Ivory Cost and his purported wife Kusum Kayastha, 32, of Kavre were found cheating unwary people via Facebook, WhatsApp, Viber and Imo, among other social networking sites. The duo used Indian mobile number to lure the victims into depositing cash in their bank account on the pretext of ‘sending them parcel and lottery amount’. According to MPCD, they had defrauded people to the tune of around Rs 1.4 million. MPCD said incidents of cybercrime were on the rise due to misuse of internet and social networking sites. As many as 926 cases of cybercrime have been reported to the MPCD during the seven months of this fiscal compared to 1,482 in 2017-18 and 1,197 in 2016-17. Around 60 per cent of the alleged victims are women and unemployed youths. As per the statistics of MPCD, it has filed cases against 40 persons so far this fiscal. Some cases were settled through reconciliation between the concerned parties, while suspects of other offences have yet to be arrested. A social networking site is an open platform for all sorts of people, including frauds and criminals, and it cannot identify who is good or bad. Bringing the guilty to book is next to impossible for police unless a victim categorically identifies the suspect, warned SPP Dhiraj Pratap Singh, MPCD in-charge. He urged all to alert the police if they had received any such dubious calls or malicious posts or texts luring them of parcel or lottery. Cheating, blackmailing, phishing, identity theft, hacking, spreading hate and inciting violence, circulating lewd photos and videos and grooming are major forms of cybercrime reported to the law enforcement agency. Any person involved in cybercrime is liable to Rs 100,000 in fine or five years in jail or both.