Punjab Police busts hi-tech multi-crore bank fraud racket; notorious Amit Sharma @ Nitin arrested
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in/ Chandigarh
Punjab Police State Cyber Crime Cell today achieved big success in busting high-tech multi-crore bank fraud racket operating in the state and arrested a notorious key member of the gang Amit Sharma @ Nitin. In this regard, FIR has been registered against him under Sections 420, 465, 468, 471, 120-B of IPC and Sections 66, 66-C, 66-D of IT Act at PS Cyber Crime, Bureau of Investigation, SAS Nagar.
Disclosing this here today, ADGP-cum-Director, Bureau of Investigation Arpit Shukla said the cyber crime cell has investigated this case on the complaint of Vijay Kumar, Location Manager of HDFC Bank, who has alleged that a fraud of around Rs. 2 crore from a HDFC bank account was committed in a tech savvy manner. During the investigation, it was found that the fraudster has siphoned off the account money and transferred it to 5 different bank accounts. These bank accounts were opened on fake identity and later on withdrew the cash by ATM withdrawals and self cheques from the accounts, he added.
Revealing the modus operandi, BoI Chief said 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 IDs thereby updating their own mobile numbers and Email IDs in the targeted accounts hence becoming the virtual controllers of that account.
In this case Amit Sharma @ Nitin impersonated himself as Akash Arun Bhatia (victim of the case) and gained internet access of his bank account. Thereafter the accused transferred the money to five different accounts opened in the name of Vikram Singh by submitting forged documents.
He further informed that during the course of investigation it was found that all the Government identity proofs including chip based driving licenses, PAN cards, hologram containing Voter ID cards, etc provided as KYC documents for opening of bank accounts and for obtaining mobile numbers were found to be fake and fabricated. 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 numbers used were made functional only during the commission of the crime and remained non-accessible thereafter, he added.
Elaborating further, Arpit Shukla said during the investigation it was found that the racketeers were operating from Ludhiana as the mobile phones when used to commit crime were located there. Physical search and door to door verification of the area where these phones were operational was conducted during investigation.
He informed that 3 accused were nominated in this case as accused during investigation and out of them two accused namely Rajiv Kumar S/o Dev Raj and Deepak Kumar Gupta S/o Darshan Lal Gupta of Shimlapuri were arrested on 28-01-2020 from Shimlapuri, Ludhiana. However one accused managed to escape on that day.
He added that a special team headed by Insp.Bhagwant Singh, SHO P.S. Cyber Crime, BoI, was formed to nab the notorious criminal Amit Sharma @ Nitin S/o Ram Lal resident of Deol Enclave, Ludhiana. This accused was absconding since 08-01-2020 and it has been found that he is wanted in 6 FIRs registered in various police stations in the states of Punjab and Haryana in multi-crore frauds.
It is worth mentioning here that the accused in a very tech savvy manner used to hack the bank accounts by altering the details associated with them. The team nabbed the accused from Shimlapuri area of Ludhiana. This accused is the same one who had given a slip to the police party on 28-01-2020 when his co accused were arrested from the gym where a trap was laid for arresting the accused on that day. With the arrest of the accused, all these cases of fraud involving fraudulent transfer of crores of rupees stand solved. Further recoveries would be effected in due course.
August,27,2020
