Man held for helping Nigerian hack bank accounts

A man from West Bengal was arrested today for allegedly helping some Nigerian nationals siphon off money from bank accounts of mainly NRIs by hacking them, police said.
Sankar Bera, a resident of Midnapore district, was apprehended for allegedly letting the Nigerians use his personal bank account for parking the money they transferred after hacking the accounts of people, especially NRIs, they said.
A complaint in this regard was filed by L Jagan Mohan Rao, an NRI, who alleged that some fraudsters hacked his bank account details in January this year and transferred Rs 8 lakh and Rs 2 lakh, respectively, into two private banks at New Delhi and in Purulia of West Bengal, they said.

During the course of investigation, police obtained the KYC and account statements of the beneficiary account of the private bank in Purulia, belonging to Bera wherein Rs 2 lakh was found to be credited through NEFT, stated a release issued by Hyderabad Police.
Bera has confessed to his role in the crime, police said.
Explaining the sequence of events, the police said Bera came into contact with a Nigerian named Obakc last year through Yahoo Messenger chat and they became close friends.

While chatting, Obakc asked Bera to provide details of his bank accounts so as to transfer funds after hacking the bank accounts of NRIs, the release said.

Obakc allegedly promised 20 per cent commission to Bera.
Accordingly, Bera gave details of his ICICI bank account at Purulia Branch to Obakc on his mail ID, where the Nigerians after hacking the bank accounts, particularly of NRIs, fraudulently transferred the amount through RTGS, the release added.