Anand Five persons were booked in connection to the hacking of a payment gateway company’s software and siphoned off Rs 25 crore. Officials said that the accused used forged documents to put up a fake firm as their front to transfer money.
Two persons have already been arrested, police said, adding that both are from Gujarat.
Investigations revealed that of the Rs 25 crore, Rs 1.39 crore was transferred to the fake firm’s account, which was based in Navi Mumbai. “Out of Rs 1.39 crore, the second arrested accused had transferred Rs 64 lakh to the fake firm’s account which was based in Navi Mumbai,” the officer quoted the registered FIR report.
According to a Times of India report, police searched the fake firm’s office in Navi Mumbai – located near Thane railway station – and found the forged documents where it was mentioned that the firm was registered by four partners.
A fresh case was registered at the Naupada police station. The FIR was registered against Sanjay Singh, Amol Andale alias Aman, Kedar alias Sameer Dighe, Jitendra Pandey and another unidentified person under Indian Penal Code sections 420 (cheating), 409 (criminal breach of trust), 467, 468 (forgery), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (common intention) and provisions of Information Technology Act. The police said that they also found several bank accounts and notarised documents.
Transactions of over Rs 16,180 crore was noted in the bank accounts, police officials said. The officials added that some of the money has also been transferred to foreign bank accounts.
The investigation is in its initial phase, and more information about this suspected mega racket is yet to emerge.
Earlier in May, Uttar Pradesh Police, in coordination with the cyber cell department, busted an inter-state cybercriminal gang from Bhadohi district and recovered 194 ‘thumb clones’ from their possession.
Rajesh Bharti, additional superintendent of police said that investigation revealed that in both the cases, fake thumbprints were allegedly used to withdraw money.
Two men – Rishi Raj Singh from Saraon in Prayagraj and Rohit Kumar from Mau – were arrested on May 2 for being alleged members of an inter-state gang of cybercriminals.
The police recovered a total of 194 thumb impressions from them, tagged with Aadhaar number and bank account number and name. Machines and equipment used for making fingerprint clone-poly stamper machine, printer machine, laptop, two biometric machines with OTG (on the go) adapter, five MOPS (multi option payment system), 5 ATM cards, three mobiles, a polymer and image darkener were also recovered from their possession.
Bharti said the duo have been found cloning thumb impressions from sale deeds available on various websites and siphoning money from bank accounts linked with Aadhaar numbers through point of sale (PoS) machines.
What came out to be a real shocker for the Bhadohi Police was the fact that the duo learnt thumb cloning from the videos available on YouTube. The police also urged the government to ban YouTube channels that are promoting such content.
