The cybercrime officials of the criminal investigation department on Monday, May 15, arrested a 32-year-old engineering graduate for hacking into government sites to misuse information for personal gain.
The accused has been identified as Dilip Raje Gowda, a habitual offender having cybercrime cases in various parts of Karnataka, Maharashtra, Goa and Telangana. The accused would hack into government websites and the IT department to access sensitive information and siphon off huge amounts of money related to IT refunds.
Based on a complaint that some unknown person gained unauthorised access into the PAN account of the people to access the Income Tax filing portal to alter their IT returns to get refunds, a team of CID cybercrime division officials headed by Superintendent of Police, M.D. Sharath stepped up the probe and tracked down the accused through the bank account where the transaction of the IT refunds happened.
The accused had used fake KYC documents to open the bank account in the name of the victim. In the present case, the accused person was successful in manipulating the IT returns, and a refund to the tune of ₹1,41,84,360 was credited to his account, the police said.
The probe revealed that the accused had already siphoned off ₹3.6 crores from different parts of the country. Based on the efforts made by the team and with technical support, the accused person was traced and arrested from Dharwad.
The accused is a native of Hirisave, Hassan district, but is currently residing in Dharwad city. The investigation has revealed that the accused was involved in several vehicle loan frauds, too, where he had taken money from Bajaj Finance and cheated them.
“The income tax authorities have been informed about the vulnerability in their systems, and we have requested them to plug it. In the same way, the Kaveri online portal of the state government, which deals with property registration, was also misused by the accused person. The same has been intimated to the concerned officials,” K.V. Sharath Chandra IPS, DGP, CID, supervising the investigation said.
