Using an ingenious method, conmen siphoned off Rs. 9.62 lakh from the account of a city-based businessman by illegally obtaining a duplicate SIM card for his cellphone number and thus receiving the one-time password (OTP) to make money transactions while his phone remained defunct.
One of the suspects, who received a portion of the money, was arrested by the Mumbai police a few days ago in connection with another case of fraud and the Cyber Crime wing of the Karnataka police has now sought his custody.
It all began on September 21 when a garment wholesaler from Chickpet found his BSNL cellphone number suddenly deactivated. A day later, he was shocked to receive an email from his bank branch (Union Bank of India) in BVK Iyengar Road, that he had transferred Rs. 9,62,700 to two bank accounts through two online transactions. He rushed to the Cyber Crime police station and lodged a complaint.
“Investigations revealed that a man posing as a businessman went to the BSNL outlet on K.G. Road, said that he had lost his SIM card, wanted it to be blocked and a fresh one issued immediately. Without adequate verification, a woman employee accepted the request and issued a new SIM card after deactivating the original one that was in the complainant’s cellphone,” said an investigating officer.
Immediately after getting the duplicate SIM activated, the suspects hacked into the online bank account of the victim and initiated the money transfers. “As the culprits had a duplicate SIM, they received the OTP, thus making the transaction possible,” the officer added.
Cyber Crime sleuths suspect it could be the work of bank fraud gang using novel methods of cheating, targeting bank customers with fat bank balances after illegally obtaining their account details through bank insiders or through phishing.
The BSNL employee has been subjected to a departmental punishment following the case.
Probe revealed that the first transaction of Rs. 4.81 lakh was done to an ICICI Bank account in Mumbai and the rest to an SBI account in Uttar Pradesh. “The Mumbai account holder, now identified as Salman Hanif Valeria (25), had withdrawn the money immediately after the transfer. We have tracked him to realise that he is lodged in Thane prison after being booked in another case. We will take him into custody for questioning,” the senior officer said.
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