Police look into ‘sale’ of bank accounts to rackets

The Ernakulam Rural police were in for a rude shock while interrogating a youth recently nabbed in connection with an online fraud in which a 63yearold from Aluva was cheated of ₹1.15 crore.

It was found, the police say, that Ashwin, 25, hailing from Kozhikode, had sold access to his bank account to the racket behind the online fraud for ₹15,000. The police traced transactions worth lakhs of rupees through the account about which he had no clue. Worse, he was found to have opened another account using the credentials of his motherinlaw and sold off that too in a similar manner, the police say.

Sixtyodd such bank accounts were found compromised thus in Ernakulam district, half of which were traced to the Ernakulam Rural police limits.

A dangerous trend

“This has emerged as a dangerous trend in Kerala. Earlier it was confined to east and north India. The magnitude of the problem is not yet clear and I hope that it has not yet assumed mammoth proportions,” said Vaibhav Saxena, District Police Chief (Ernakulam Rural).

It is suspected that illegal rackets maybe tracking digital footprint to zero on vulnerable persons who are open to such illicit tradeoff for some easy bucks.

Mr. Saxena cited numerous mobile apps that demand all kinds of permission while being installed and users who are not so digitally literate acceding to that. These users may also click on spurious links, thus exposing their activities on digital devices to fraudsters.

Access to OTPs

Account holders who resort to such tradeoff give the bank the mobile number of those who had purchased the account, who then get access to onetime passwords (OTP) for online transactions. The original account holders are in the dark about the transactions.

Money could be funnelled through such accounts for nefarious activities and when tracked down, the original accountholders are left in the lurch.

“A good thing is that prompt followup by cybercrime helplines now enable enforcement agencies to intervene at the earliest. A dedicated cyber division by the Kerala Police has been set up at the most appropriate time,” said Mr. Saxena.

The Ernakulam Rural police have also formed a pool of cybersecurity volunteers to help disseminate information about the latest forms of cybercrime among the public.

Account-holders are clueless about the transactions after the accounts are ‘sold’