Punjab Police Cyber Crime Cell busts multi-crore bank fraud racket, two arrested

Punjab Police's Cyber Crime Cell achieved big success in busting a hi-tech multi-crore Bank fraud racket operating across the state.

The fraudster siphoned off the account money in five Bank accounts opened on fake identities and later on withdrew the cash through ATMs and self cheques.

Disclosing this here today, a spokesperson of Bureau of Investigation said that Vijay Kumar, Location Manager Investigation, Risk Intelligence and Control Unit, HDFC Bank submitted an application on December 30, 2019, alleging a fraud of around Rs 2 crore from a bank account of the HDFC Bank in a tech-savvy manner.

He further said the modus operandi was that the fraudsters very shrewdly changed the Email IDs and mobile numbers registered with the bank account of the victim to identical mobile numbers and email Id thereby updating their own mobile number and e-mail id in the targeted account hence becoming the virtual controllers of that account.

"All the money withdrawals were done by the fraudsters through ATM cards and cheques thereby leaving no trail for the Police to follow. Moreover, the Mobile used were made functional only during the operation and remained non-accessible thereafter", the spokesperson said in a statement.

During the further course of the investigation, it was found that the racket was operating from Ludhiana and consisted of at least three persons. Two of them were arrested on January, 28, while one managed to escape.

"From the arrested accused, Rs. 10,00,000/- which was deposited in their own accounts have been recovered and more recoveries will be affected soon", officials said.

Both the above said arrested accused were produced in the Court of Judicial Magistrate and have been remanded in the five-day custody.