Hyderabad: Six persons were arrested by Cyber Crime police here on Wednesday for fraud and unauthorised transactions amounting to Rs 10,00,000.
According to a police statement, on September 25, Fino Payments Bank received a complaint from the National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) regarding fraudulent transactions carried on the name of one of the accused – K Srinu.
Srinu had made the transactions using Aadhar Enabled Payment System (AEPS). It is a payment service that allows a bank customer to use Aadhaar as his/her/their identity to access his/her/their Aadhaar-enabled bank account and perform basic banking transactions.
Six accused – N Asadharan alias Rupesh, S Uday Kiran, Md. Iyaz, Ch. Narendra, R Shiva Krishna and K Srinu – were arrested. Police also seized 13 debit cards, 8 sim cards, 8 mobile phones, 2 laptops, 1 pen drive, 1 poly stamp machine, 1 trodat gel bottle, 3 transparent papers and 1 biometric machine.
Investigations revealed Uday transferred some 2500 land registration documents (fingerprints included) in soft copies to Narendra. The gang then duplicated the copies along with the fingerprints using the seized materials.
They would open accounts in various banks make deceptive transactions through different merchant IDs and draw the money.
Police have so far ensured to give back Rs 5,00,000/- to the victims. Efforts are on to recover the remaining money.
Police have also issued an advisory to citizens to look out for financial fraud.
- People are advised not to fall prey to schemes and plans which show easy money and high returns on investments.
- Use Aadhar data confidentially and do not reveal it anywhere 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 fraud and be careful before using their fingerprints or biometric data anywhere.
- Any misuse of confidential databases will attract severe legal and penal action by the concerned authorities. Hence custodians of the confidential database are liable to be punished in case of data breach.
