Conceptual illustration: A magnifying glass inspecting abstract phone, payment-handle and email symbols, with a question mark rather than a safety checkmark. Headline: CHECK BEFORE YOU TRUST.

AI-generated illustration by CyberShitty. Not a photograph or a document from the organisations named.

The Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) keeps a searchable list of identifiers that have come up in cybercrime complaints filed on the national portal: phone numbers, email addresses, bank accounts, UPI IDs, social media handles, websites and apps. Anyone can search it for free.

It is a quick check before you pay a stranger, share details with an unknown caller, or trust a website. It is not a verdict. The list only knows what victims have reported, and I4C itself says it does not certify those complaints.

Use it when

Someone you do not know asks you to pay to a UPI ID or bank account.
An unknown number calls or messages claiming to be the police, a bank, a courier or a company.
You are about to buy from, invest through or download from a website or app you have not used before.

Not the right tool when

Reporting a crime: if you lost money, call 1930 or file on cybercrime.gov.in.
Proving that someone is a criminal: a listing is based on complaints that have not been verified.
Proving that someone is safe: new scam numbers and accounts appear every day and will not be on the list yet.

Keep this ready

The exact identifier: a 10-digit mobile number without +91, the UPI ID, the account number, the email address, the profile link, or the website address
For an app, its name or link

Step by step

Open the suspect search page on cybercrime.gov.in (the button at the end of this guide goes straight to it).
Pick the tab for what you have: Mobile, E-mail, Bank Account Number, Social Media or UPI ID.
For a website or an app, use the sister page instead and choose Website Url or Mobile App as the suspect type.
Type the identifier exactly. Enter mobile numbers without +91.
Search, and read any result together with the disclaimer on the page.

What happens next

If the identifier is listed, treat it as a strong warning. Do not pay or share anything, and stop contact.
If it is not listed, that tells you nothing either way. Judge the request on its own red flags: pressure, secrecy, payment to a personal account, threats.
If you were targeted but lost nothing, you can report the number, link or handle on the Report Suspect page of the same portal or on Sanchar Saathi Chakshu. If you lost money, call 1930.

Know the limits

The database comes from public complaints. I4C says it does not certify their authenticity; that is for police investigation.
It is incomplete, because criminals create and throw away numbers, accounts and sites quickly.
It may contain errors. If you believe your own number or account is listed wrongly, I4C asks you to email cyberdost@mha.gov.in with an explanation and supporting documents.