KATHMANDU: In a massive crackdown on digital financial crimes, the Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) has blocked over 223,000 websites and mobile applications linked to illegal online betting and financial scams.

Prompted by government directives and heightened risks during the FIFA World Cup, the authority deployed a dedicated task force alongside Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to actively hunt and block illicit URLs in real time using specialized threat intelligence tools.

Despite the ongoing challenge of operators launching new domains to bypass restrictions, officials emphasize that continuous monitoring, continuous URL tracking, and crowdsourced reporting via GitHub remain actively deployed to dismantle these illegal digital networks.