Four men have been arrested for allegedly siphoning off money from several bank accounts through clickjacking and SIM blocking, the police said on Monday.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) Sagar Singh Kalsi said that the accused have been identified as Kasif Akhtar, 23, resident of Okhla, Gaurav Kumar, 26, resident of Patna, Musa Gous Sheikh, 32, resident of Mumbai, and Mohammad Ali, 48, resident of Thane.
The kingpin of the gang is a person of African origin who used to send phishing emails to his victims to get information like bank account number, user ID and password. The accused used to target those having current or business accounts.
The police said that on Wednesday, one Harish Chander approached them and said that he received a message on his phone about an alternate mobile number changing request. The complainant said that since he had obtained a new SIM one day ago he took the request as a normal message.
However, in the evening, his SIM was found to be blocked and when he checked his email ID on Thursday, he found that there was a netbanking password generating request.
When he approached the bank and checked his account, тВ╣10 lakh was found to have been transferred in three transactions into two accounts located in Bihar and West Bengal.
Mr. Chander told the police that he got to know from the customer care that a duplicate SIM of his mobile number was issued to an unknown person from a store at a mall in Laxmi Nagar.
The police registered a case. During investigation, Mr. Kalsi said, the police collected a photo of the suspect, a copy of the forged voter ID of the complainant and other details.
It was revealed that the money was transferred into the accounts of two persons тАФ Kumar Samrat, a rickshaw puller in Patna and Manoj Dass, resident of West Bengal. The money was later withdrawn from ATMs.
The police identified the man, who received the SIM, as Mr. Akhtar and arrested him in Zakir Nagar on November 17. The forged voter ID of the complainant was seized from his possession, Mr. Kalsi said.
On interrogation, Mr. Akhtar said that he along with Mr. Kumar and another person had been to the mall in Laxmi Nagar to get the SIM. Mr. Kumar was later arrested in Patna.
Mr. Kumar disclosed that he was working on the instructions of Mr. Sheikh. He also said that he had received тВ╣20,000 for the SIM. Mr. Sheikh worked for Mr. Ali and both of them received the internet banking user ID and password from one Sunny, a person of African origin, Mr. Kalsi said.
A police team reached Mumbai and arrested Mr. Sheikh on Thursday and Mr. Ali on Friday.
While getting the duplicate SIM of the victimтАЩs mobile number, Mr. Akhtar gave the alternate mobile number as that of Mr. Sunny, who received the OTP and Mr. Akhtar gave the OTP to the service provider official. He then handed over the SIM to Mr. Kumar and on the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday, тВ╣10 lakh was transferred from the victimтАЩs account, the police said.
