Punjab Police bust hi-tech, multi-crore bank fraud

CHANDIGARH : Punjab Police state cyber crime cell on Thursday achieved big success in busting hi-tech multi-crore bank fraud racket in the state with the arrest of a member of the gang.

The cyber crime cell has registered an FIR against the arrested gang member Amit Sharma, alias Nitin, under Sections 420, 465, 468, 471, 120-B of IPC and 66, 66-C, 66-D of IT Act at Cyber Crime police station, SAS Nagar, according to additional director general-cum-director Arpit Shukla.

In a statement, Shukha said the cyber crime cell investigated this case on the complaint of Vijay Kumar, location manager of HDFC Bank, who alleged that a fraud of around Rs 2 crore from a bank account was committed in a “tech savvy manner”. During the investigation, it was found that the fraudster siphoned off the account money and transferred it to five different bank accounts. “These bank accounts were opened on fake identity and later on, withdrew the cash from ATM and self cheques from the accounts,” he added.

Revealing the modus operandi, the BOI chief said the fraudsters changed the email IDS and mobile numbers registered with the bank account of the victim to identical mobile numbers and email Ids, thereby updating their own mobile numbers and email IDS in the targeted accounts, hence becoming the virtual controllers of that account.

“Amit Sharma @ Nitin impersonated himself as Akash Arun Bhatia (victim of the case) and gained internet access of his bank account. Thereafter, the accused transferred the money to five different accounts opened in the name of Vikram Singh by submitting forged documents,” he said.

It was found that all the government identity proofs, including chip-based driving licences, PAN cards, hologram containing voter ID cards, etc provided as KYC documents for opening of bank accounts and for obtaining mobile numbers, were found to be fake and fabricated. All the money withdrawals were done by the fraudsters through ATM cards and cheques thereby leaving no trail for the police to follow, he said.