Chennai: About a week after cybercriminals hacked the Tamil Nadu rural development and panchayat raj department and took away ₹22.3 crore, the cybercrime police arrested seven people, suspected to be mules, from Chennai, Sivaganga and Melur. The main culprits are yet to be tracked down, and the stolen money is yet to be recovered.Police said the arrested had provided their bank accounts to a cybercrime syndicate in return for commissions to receive and transfer stolen funds. Three of the arrested men — Loganathan, Annadurai and Chella Pandian — were remanded in judicial custody, while the other four were being questioned. Police were searching for other members of the syndicate and investigating the movement of the stolen money.Tamil Nadu rural development and panchayat raj department kept the sum in an HDFC Bank account at its CIT Nagar branch in Nandanam. It was maintained in the name of the department’s director, with block development officers (BDOs) being authorised to access the account and make payments to contractors. They had individual user IDs and passwords.Ram Prasad, superintendent, complained to the Chennai city commissioner of police after discovering that funds meant for improving primary healthcare infrastructure in rural areas had been transferred without authorisation. The probe revealed that the suspects had accessed the bank’s Single Nodal Account (SNA) portal by using the credentials of authorised officials between Oct 12 and 30 and transferred ₹22.3 crore to 24 bank accounts.The CCB registered a case under five legal provisions and traced the recipient accounts.
