Hyderabad: The city cyber crime sleuths arrested six accused involved in fingerprint cloning using rubber fingerprints and Seemandhar machine to illegally withdraw Rs 10 lakh from bank account holders.
Prime accused N. Asadharan alias Rupesh, S. Uday Kiran, Md. Iyaz, Ch. Narendra, R. Shiva Krishna and K. Srinu created fingerprints cloning and carried unauthorised transactions in various bank accounts, police said.
The Central Crime Station (CCS) cyber cell on October 18 received a complaint from a victim, T. Naresh, regional head of Fino Payments Bank Ltd, which has a regional office at Balamrai, Secunderabad, joint commissioner of crimes and SIT, Dr Gajarao Bhupal, said in a press meet on Wednesday.
One K. Srinu got enrolled as a business correspondent for providing banking services using POS (Point of Sale) and Bank’s Merchant portal and was allotted a Terminal ID, Gajarao Bhupal said.
On September 25, the bank received a complaint from National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI), regarding fraudulent transactions carried out by K. Srinu who misused Terminal ID, Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AEPS), the police official said.
Based on Naresh’s complaint, the cyber crime teams registered a case on crime number 2399 of 2023 and took up the investigation, which revealed that the accused had formed a gang to get easy money through the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System, he said.
As per their plan, they ordered Image Pack Stamp Machine through the flipkart app and also managed to procure Seemandhar heat machine, polymer liquid gel, transparent A4 papers and AB powder.
In July, the arrested accused Ch. Narendra, who is a childhood friend of another accused Uday, supplied up to 2,500 land registration document files in soft copies including fingerprints through pen drive to Asadharan and Illyas, the additional commissioner said adding that they managed to convert a total of 1,000 fingerprints into cloned fingerprints.
Later, the accused opened various bank accounts and merchant IDs and carried 2,500 AEPS (Aadhaar Enabled Payment System) transactions through different merchant ID’s and shared the withdrawn amount among themselves.
The investigation team ensured that an amount of Rs 5,00,000 is returned to the victims through the bank out of the total lost amount of Rs 10,00,000 as on date. Efforts will continue till the entire lost amount is returned to the victims, he said.
Appeal to the general public
People are advised not to fall prey to schemes and plans which promises high returns on investments.
Keep Aadhaar data confidential. Do not reveal it to anyone unless it is required.
People are advised to cross-check their account balance and transaction statements periodically and report any fraudulent transactions immediately.
Youth are warned to be aware of job frauds and be careful before using their fingerprints for biometric data anywhere.
Any misuse of confidential databases will attract severe legal and penal action by the concerned authorities. Hence, custodians of the confidential data base are liable to be punished in case of data breach.
