A man accused of swindling ₹10 lakh from the account of a Mattancherry-based businessman through an online scam was arrested by the Kochi City police from Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh.
The arrested was identified as Dheeraj Giri, 28. A team from the Mattancherry police nabbed the accused from his premium apartment in Greater Noida. Around 20 bank passbooks, numerous ATM cards, chequebooks, PAN cards, and Aadhaar cards; six premium smartphones; and SIM cards were reportedly seized from the accused. He was also allegedly found to have made transactions of significant amounts through various bank accounts and owned premium vehicles.
The accused allegedly wiped clean the victim’s account by transferring ₹10 lakh through 39 transactions to 41 different bank accounts between 10 p.m. on October 31 and 8 a.m. on November 1, 2024. It started with the accused allegedly sending a malicious APK (Android Package Kit) file compressed with the information required to install and run an Android app in the garb of an authentic message from the victim’s bank to the latter’s mobile phone number.
“As soon as he clicked on it, his smartphone was taken over by the accused with complete access, including that of One Time Passwords from the bank for authorising bank transactions,” said the police.
The police tracked down the URL used to create the APK file and sent it to Google. Using that information, the police managed to get two mobile phone numbers, a Gmail account, and an IP address used for creating the APK file. For further clarification, the police approached the telecom service provider, which zeroed in on a mobile phone number allegedly used to create the APK file. Assistance from the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C), Kerala Cyberdome, and the Kochi Cyber Cell came in handy.
“We tracked down the address used to purchase the SIM card, amassed the Call Data Record, and tracked down the bank account, which happened to be operated by the accused. It emerged that the Bengaluru police had already served a request to his bank on another similar scam worth ₹1.20 crore,” said the police.
Since then, the police have tracked down six mobile numbers and seven bank accounts reportedly secured and operated by the accused using third-party credentials. The police have also traced a few more suspects linked to the scam as the probe continues. A probe was also underway to find out how the accused got hold of the bank account details of high-net-worth individuals.
A team comprising Mattancherry inspector Shibin K.A., sub-inspector Jimmy Jose, assistant sub-inspector Samad P.E., senior civil police officers Edwin Rose, Subith Kumar, and Dhaneesh, and civil police officer Febin made the arrest.
Published – January 25, 2025 07:03 pm IST