Criminals are employing innovative methods to cheat people and take away their hard-earned money from bank accounts.
Published Nov 03, 2023 | 9:30 AM ⚊ Updated Nov 03, 2023 | 9:30 AM
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Provision store owner T Ramanjinappa was confident that he could afford the oral and maxillofacial surgery required to fix his complex dental problem. He had more than the ₹40,000 required for the surgical procedure in his bank account.
However, the 44-year-old was worried too. He should also meet the expenses for celebrating the Navaratri. Still, he was optimistic that he could manage, and was busy at his provision store.
On 25 October, his world came crashing around him as he realised that ₹43,800 had gone missing from his SBI account. Panicked, the resident of Sadahalli in Northeast Bengaluru checked his account statement and realised that his worst fear had come true.
Multiple withdrawals had been made from Ramanjinappa’s account since 7 October without his knowledge. On three occasions, ₹10,000 each was withdrawn. The fourth transaction showed a withdrawal of ₹9,500 and another ₹4,300 was taken away on 25 October.
The man swore that he had not shared a One-Time Password (OTP) with anyone or received any phone calls or emails.
“I haven’t shared the OTP with anyone. No one called me over the phone for my account details. There were no emails or any links sent to me,” Ramanjinappa wondered. He decided to visit the bank for clarity.
The bank officials informed him that the transactions were made through the Aadhaar-enabled Payment System (AePS) and expressed their helplessness.
Based on the bank’s advice, Ramanjinappa went to the Northeast Cybercrime, Economic Offences, and Narcotics (CEN) police station and complained. The police filed an FIR under sections of the Information Technology (IT) Act and the IPC.
While recording his statement, investigators asked Ramanjinappa if he had registered any property recently. He had registered 13 guntas at Doddaballapura with the jurisdictional sub-registrar’s office on 8 May this year. It was then the police explained to him a new modus operandi cybercriminals have adopted.
The miscreants might have logged into the Kaveri 2.0 portal of the Karnataka government and downloaded Ramanjinappa’s property documents which had his thumb impressions and Aadhaar card details.
They replicated the thumb impression on silicone rubber sheets with which they activated the AePS facility and siphoned off money from his bank account.
“There is a withdrawal limit of ₹10,000 at a time and ₹25,000 a day. This prevents crooks from withdrawing large amounts. So they keep trying on multiple days to take away the entire money,” a senior police officer told South First.
The police also told Ramanjinappa that he was not the only victim. There were more than a hundred complaints lodged with the Bengaluru police. At least 116 AePS cases have been registered in Bengaluru city alone, city police commissioner B Dayananda said.
The Bengaluru police recently arrested two men from Krishnaganj in Bihar. The arrested were Mohammad Parvez Ezdani Ansari (26) and Abuzar Shamim Akhtar (20) who were agents of a micro ATM system in rural Bihar. The city police were probing a few other cases in which the transactions were made to the same Point of Sale (PoS) machines, a senior police officer said.
A retired senior citizen, Shanti Rao of Sahakaranagar at Kodigehalli in Bengaluru, lost ₹55,000 to crooks who employed the same method in the first week of October. She was busy with guests at home and did not check any messages.
On 7 October she saw the message. Since it was the second Saturday of the month when banks are shut, she visited the bank on Monday and learnt about the six AePS transactions that made her poorer by ₹55,000.
“I asked the bank officials to block my biometrics. I then complained to the police. After my experience, all friends and relatives have de-linked their Aadhaar card from their bank accounts,” Rao told South First.
She had sold a small piece of land in Mysuru before the Covid-19 pandemic. Rao said she had heard of an NRI, who had lost ₹8 lakh.
On 23 October, the Mangaluru city police arrested three people from Bihar for similar offences. The arrested were Deepak Kumar Hembram (33), Vivek Kumar Biswas (24), and Madan Kumar (23). More than 1,000 property documents belonging to people in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and other states were seized from their possession.
The police said gangs using similar modus operandi must be operating in other parts of the country as well. The scam came to light after multiple property owners in Bengaluru and Mangaluru approached the police with complaints.
Vinod Pinto, the president of CREDAI in Mangaluru and also a real estate developer, told South First that he lost ₹10,000 from his Canara Bank account. In the last week of August, he received around 15 to 20 messages, asking for authentication for his Aadhaar-linked bank accounts.
He declined all, except in the case of his Canara bank account, and lost ₹10,000.
“I informed my banker and got my account blocked. Since the banker said they would put the money back, I did not go to the police. However, the bank later insisted that it required a police complaint, and I obliged. My property documents were also downloaded from the government’s Kaveri website and the cybercriminals misused my credentials,” he said.
“Now that the government knows that its website has loopholes where one can enter illegally and siphon off data, the government should install a firewall and have a foolproof system. I have delinked my Aadhaar and I think one should not insist on an Aadhaar card at all,” Pinto opined.
A senior police officer said cyber criminals were embracing new methods to con people. The Karnataka police have taken serious note of the changing trends and initiated measures to counter them.
According to the State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB), 2021 cybercrime cases were registered in September this year, followed by 2196 cases in August. In September 2022, the number of cybercrime cases registered was 1072.
Home Minister G Parameshwara said a committee has been formed by both the Home Department and the IT Department for countering cybercrimes. The committee would make recommendations to implement policies to strengthen cyber laws.
