7 held for hacking accounts and stealing cash using fake SIMs

Bengaluru, Jan 13: The sleuths of the Cyber Crime police station have arrested seven people, including a Deputy Manager of Axis bank, for allegedly siphoning off cash Rs 1.8 lakh by fraudulent means.

Police said that on December 29, S.R. Narasimhan, retired Chairman and MD of National Hydro Electric Power Corporation, filed a complaint stating that the service of his Vodafone mobile number was terminated on December 4. After that his Axis Bank savings account was hacked and Rs 1,80,3751 was debited from his account in 17 fraudulent transactions made by unknown people on the intervening night of December 4 and 5.

The complainant came to know that his prepaid mobile connection has been changed to postpaid one by using fake documents by some unknown person. A case was registered under the provisions of IT Act.

The police team, led by DySP M.D. Sharath, found that Gopikrishna alias Gopi, 30, a Deputy Manager of Axis Bank’s Peddapalli branch in Telangana, had conspired with three accused - Ramana alias Ramana Reddy, 45, Nageswara Reddy, 27, and Veerabrahmam alias Anand, 23, - and provided them the account details customers in Karnataka, who were maintaining huge balances in Axis Bank.

“Nageswara Reddy and Anand obtained duplicate SIM card of the complainant's registered mobile number with the bank from Vodafone Store, by submitting fake documents and also changed the plan. The staff at Vodafone Store issued the SIM card without verification. Later, the accused transferred the amount to different mobile numbers using mobile banking and the LIME wallet options of Axis Bank and later withdrew the amount from Axis Bank ATMs,” the police said.

“The other three accused - Ramesh, 30, Kiran, 33, and Padmaja, 35, - had helped Nageswara Reddy and his accomplices obtain more than 100 fake SIM cards of Reliance company. Kiran, a distributor, provided SIM cards for fake documents, while Padmaja was a retail SIM card distributor. The accused had taken duplicate SIM cards of various victims from BSNL, Vodafone, Aircel and other service providers. These providers had issued duplicate SIM cards without proper verification.

Investigations also revealed that the accused have also hacked SBI Buddy Application and transferred money. FIRs have also been registered in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, the police said. The police arrested all the seven accused within a week of filing the FIR.