Cyber Crime: 2 arrested from Hyderabad

KOCHI: A Nigerian-led international online racket involving private sector bank officials and telecom operators was busted by the Kochi City police after they arrested two persons from Hyderabad. The two were arrested in connection with the cybercrime in which the online account of a doctor in the city was hacked and Rs 11.14 lakhs siphoned off.

Dr Shabeer Khan's online account was hacked on March 30 by the racketeers. Nine police teams were formed to trace the perpetrators of the crime. The case was supervised by Ernakulam Range inspector general K Padmakumar, city police commissioner M R Ajith Kumar, assistant commissioner Sunil Jacob and circle inspector D S Suneesh Babu.

The Home Department has announced reward for the police officials who successfully tracked down the accused.
Of the four accused identified in the case, police were able to nab two: Hamid alias Mirza Jaffar Baig, 28, of Agapura Nampally in Hyderabad, and Sheik Rahan Ali, 34, of Chanjun Guda in Hyderabad.
A manhunt has been launched to nab the other two accused, Muhammed Ali, 28, and Atha ur Rahman, 32, of Hyderabad.
IG Padmakumar said the accused worked for a Nigerian, Felix Ivdubuisi Egedigave alias David, 32, who is currently in a Kolkata jail in connection with a similar case.
"The cyber wing of the Kerala police found that the accused used the phone which had earlier been used by Felix, who had trained and appointed operatives across the country for committing the fraud. We have clear leads on the support given to the racket by bank insiders and telecom operators," the IG said.
He said it was with the support of officials in the telecom company that the accused got the duplicate SIM card of the doctor from a mobile store in Hyderabad. The doctor had a mobile connection in Kerala.
Padmakumar said the accused had withdrawn the amount from 90 ATMs across the country after transferring the money to 20 bank accounts of three private sector banks in different states and cities including Secunderabad and Kolkata.
"We will alert the national (crime detection) agencies, which will widen the nature of the probe into this case," he said.
"There have been similar cases registered in other states. We will file an application before the appropriate court to get the Nigerian in custody. He's said to be an agent of an international online hacking racket operating in India," ACP Sunil Jacob said.
The accused had taken the duplicate SIM card to get the pin number that will be sent by a bank to transfer the money from the account.
How the fraudsters siphoned off the money?
On March 30, mobile number of the victim went dead.
The fraudsters availed a duplicate SIM from the telecom operator in Hyderabad and activated it to get the PIN number, which the bank's system sends to customers for enabling online transaction.

They then entered the online account of the victim after cracking the three-level online security of the bank -- profile password, transaction password and mobile password.

They transferred the money to 20 accounts in various branches of banks across in the country.

Withdrew the money from the said accounts on March 30 itself.
Source-TOI