The northeast cybercrime police arrested two persons from Bihar who used a novel method to fraudulently use the Aadhaar-enabled payment system in banks to make transactions.
The scam came to light when a 52-year-old woman from Yelahanka New Town complained to the police on October 27 that ₹10,000 had been deducted from her account using the Aadhaar-enabled payment system. The next day, another case was filed by a CRPF personnel stating that someone had deducted ₹60,000 from her account fraudulently.
Cybercrime inspector Mallikarjuna M. tracked down Abuzar, 28, and his associate Parvez from Araria town in Bihar based on the bank transaction details and recovered ₹1.05 lakh, two laptops, mobile phones and a fingerprint scanner from them.
According to the police, the accused were running a customer service point to help villagers open bank accounts. As they were familiar with biometrics, they devised a plan for cybercrime using the technology.
They would log on to the Karnataka government’s Kaveri portal and download sale deeds containing fingerprints of the owners. They would then check the Aadhaar details linked to the bank account, and copy the fingerprints into their device and use it in the Aadhaar-enabled payment option to withdraw money.
“This is a new kind of cyber fraud,” Mr. Mallikarjuna said, adding that the accused had committed many such fraudulent transactions in one month. With their arrest, two cases registered in the NE cybercrime station have been solved, and further investigations are on to ascertain their possible involvement in similar crimes, he said.
