Two arrested in Rs 10L cyber fraud case
Two persons were arrested for impersonating as SBI bank officials, asking the victim to click on a link of a malicious file that cost him over Rs 10 lakh.
The accused, identified as Shankar Dan (27) and Pradeep Kumar Dan (26), used a payment gateway app to randomly enter the mobile numbers and identify the names of the banks associated with the numbers.
According to the police, the complainant received a phone call on June 30 from a man posing as an SBI representative. The caller informed him about a bounced cheque and sent a link via WhatsApp, claiming it contained the cheque image. Upon clicking the link and installing an APK file, the complainant found nothing as described, the police said.
Suspecting something amiss, he immediately disconnected the call, deleted the file and switched off his mobile phone.
“On June 30, they called the complainant posing as bank officials and told him that two cheques issued from his account had bounced and requested him to verify the cheque images. A link containing a malicious file was then sent to the complainant on WhatsApp,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Southwest) Amit Goel said.
However, on restarting the device, he received multiple SMS alerts regarding password changes and unauthorised financial activity, the police official added.
An investigation revealed that two fixed deposits of Rs 5.62 lakh and Rs 4.54 lakh had been prematurely closed, and an additional Rs 48,600 had been debited. The total loss amounted to Rs 10.64 lakh, the police said.
A probe in the matter found that the OTPs generated during the fraudulent transactions were diverted to an unknown mobile number, allowing the accused to gain unauthorised access to the complainant’s account, the DCP said.
The cheated amount was first transferred to an online payment gateway, and then used to pay credit card dues and make purchases.
“The funds were further withdrawn using mobile payment apps or used to buy gift cards,” the DCP said.
“During sustained interrogation, Shankar confessed that he used Amazon Pay to identify potential victims. He randomly entered mobile numbers into the Amazon Pay app, which revealed the bank associated with each number. Based on this information, he contacted the victims, impersonating a bank representative or manager. He would inform the victims about fabricated issues such as KYC updates, credit/debit card problems or cheque bounces,” the DCP said.
Delhi