Navi Mumbai: The joint director of a fintech company located in Vashi Railway Commercial Complex registered an FIR at the Navi Mumbai cyber police station against unidentified persons for siphoning off Rs 1.98 crore from the company’s bank account by hacking the server at the office and bypassing the payment gateway and other systems of the company by unauthorised technical intrusion and without any valid user credentials or authorised OTP consent.There were 57 unauthorised transactions within 90 minutes on October 2 from the electronic ledger of the company affiliated with its bank. The cyber fraudsters have transferred the amount to various unknown bank accounts in different countries.The cyber police team succeeded in freezing Rs 58 lakh transferred by the cyber scammers in different bank accounts.Acting on a complaint by Vinay Kamal Kedia (39), the joint director of VK Venture Pvt Ltd, the police invoked BNS sections for cheating by personation and joint criminal liability along with the Information Technology Act.As per the FIR, the company has a current account with YES Bank, Vashi branch. The account is used for AePS (Aadhaar Enabled Payment System) service business as per NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India) regulations. About 5 lakh registered retailers (merchants) across the country provide cash withdrawal service to customers through the company’s portal ‘Biznext’.The customers withdraw money after biometric (fingerprint) verification and that amount gets deposited in the company’s Yes Bank current account through the NPCI channel from the respective banks. Thereafter, the payment is settled in the accounts of the respective retailers with commission through the ‘Yes Pay Hub’ platform. The company’s daily transactions are carried out on a large scale through around 30,000 to 40,000 shops.On October 2 around 11.30 am, the company’s employee Swapnil Jadhav informed Kedia over the phone that the daily settlement of retailers was not being done successfully through the company’s computer system.When Kedia checked the Yes Bank e-ledger system at the company’s Vashi office, he found that some unknown accused had diverted money from the company’s electronic ledger to various unknown bank accounts in different countries through 57 unauthorised transactions. As soon as the fraud was noticed, the company shut down all servers and financial transactions to prevent further losses.Vishal Patil, senior inspector of Navi Mumbai Cyber police station, said, “As the complaint was immediately lodged on NCCRP and cyber crime helpline number 1930, it enabled in freezing Rs 58 lakh transferred by the cyber scammers in different bank accounts. While, we money-trailed the siphoned amount, it has been found that some amount has been withdrawn from several bank accounts where the amount was transferred unauthorisedly. Accordingly, the bank account holders details are being obtained. It is possible that those are mule bank accounts used by cyber fraudsters for parking money.”
