PUNE: An investigation into the siphoning-off of funds from the bank accounts of three people from the city between February and May has led the Pune cyber police to an 11-member Gorakhpur-based gang which is now in the custody of the Uttar Pradesh police.
The gang is suspected to have siphoned off money from another 10 to 12 bank accounts in Pune. The gang used forged Aadhaar cards to link their own mobile numbers in place of the victims’ contact numbers with the bank and changed PINs to carry out fraudulent transactions. The suspects also cloned ATM cards, police said.
Last week, the UP police had arrested the gang members for cheating several people using a similar modus operandi.
Deputy commissioner of police (cyber) Bhagyashree Navatake told TOI, “The victims told us that they had never shared their PIN or other confidential account details with any person nor did they click a suspicious link or download an unknown file.”
She said the city cyber police traced the fraudsters to Gorakhpur after gathering details of the bank accounts into which the victims’ money was transferred, the ATMs from where cash was withdrawn etc. “By the time we got in touch with our UP counterparts, they were already on the gang’s trail and arrested them last week,” said Navatake.
“Our investigation is now focused on finding out when and how the victims’ account details, such as the name, account number, bank branch and others, were obtained,” she said. “We are verifying with the banks how the accounts were compromised,” said the officer.
The police’s preliminary investigation has revealed that after fraudulently obtaining bank account details, the suspects cloned ATM cards with the same PIN. “They initiated a KYC update to link their cellphone number with the victims’ bank accounts using fake Aadhaar cards and then siphoned off money,” said Navatake.
The money from the accounts of the victims was withdrawn from different parts of Uttar Pradesh, Noida and other northern cities,” she said. Police suspect that apart from victims in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, the suspects also targeted people based in other states.
