Techie Held For Hacking Air India Frequent Flyers Accounts

July 18, 2016

New Delhi, Jul 18: A 23-year-old techie has been arrested for hacking Air India's Frequent Flyer member accounts and using them to book tickets sold to several travel agents, Delhi Police said on Sunday.

airindiaThe accused, Anitesh Giri Goswami, a BCA graduate from Pune, was arrested from Jaipur on Friday.

According to police, a complaint was received in the Cyber Crime Cell of the Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) alleging some persons were selling Air India tickets by redeeming of miles of genuine Flying Returns Members after hacking the Frequent Flyer members account.

In a statement, the EOW said it was found that the hub of the scam was in Rajasthan's Jodhpur and Anitesh was its mastermind. On basis of electronic surveillance and information of a local informer, a raid was conducted at an apartment in Jaipur and Anitesh was nabbed.

A laptop, several mobile phones and other relevant documents were also recovered from his possession.

Police further claimed that Anitesh was an IT expert, who had earlier worked with Kingfisher Airlines and Air India and was well versed with the online ticket-booking system and functioning of Air India's intranet and internet-based systems.

Explaining the modus operandi, police said that Anitesh first understood functioning of the ticketing system as well as the points/miles system of the airlines and then hacked into the Loyalty Plus programme website of Air India.

After gaining access, he administrator user rights, which he used to upgrade several other user IDs with the same rights, police said.

Using these IDs, he verified hundreds of dormant accounts of Frequent Flyer members by uploading fraudulently prepared KYC (know your customer) documents, and used these membership accounts and the miles or points accumulated in these accounts for booking airline tickets. These were sold to various travel or ticketing agents based in Pune, Delhi, Jaipur and Mumbai.

He gained access to the internal functioning of Air India website while working at the Jodhpur airport, and left his Air India job to start exploiting loopholes in the Frequent Flyer Programme's functioning.

Comments

Suresh
 - 
Monday, 18 Jul 2016

May be brother of arnab!!

Ahmed Ali K
 - 
Monday, 18 Jul 2016

Both Go-Swamis are jokers and talk of the town now a days

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News Network
January 19,2020

Chikkamagaluru, Jan 19: A Chikkamagaluru court on Saturday were sentenced to death two persons convicted of rape and murder 18-year-old girl in 2016.

Pradeep M, 32, and Santhosh, 24, of Vykuntapura in Sringeri taluk raped a 18-year-old girl while she was returning home from college on Februrary 16, 2016.

The crime in which a first year B.Com student who was walking towards her home in a footway was stopped, raped and murdered by the duo. The killers then had dumped her body in a discarded well.

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News Network
April 30,2020

Bengaluru, Apr 30: The Karnataka government on Thursday decided to allow migrant workers, tourists, students and others stranded in different parts of the state due to the ongoing lockdown to return to their native places, a day after the Centre issued guidelines for the process.

This will be a one-time movement and the government would arrange buses for those in need but they should bear the expenses, Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister J C Madhuswamy said. He also said people willing to return to the state would have to undergo tests for COVID-19. The decision was taken at the state cabinet meet and it might come into effect from Friday as the Chief Secretary will have to issue an official order, he said.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi had taken decision on movement of people and the Centre had issued a circular in this regard. Following this we have decided to permit interstate and inter-district movement," he told reporters here.

Travel expenses should be borne by those willing to return and if they want the government can provide buses from the state transport corporations. The Union Ministry of Home Affairs on Wednesday issued orders allowing migrant workers, tourists, students and other people stranded in different parts of the country to move to their respective destinations with certain conditions, giving a big relief to the distressed people. Decision on opening of salons and liquor shops will be taken after May 3, he said.

Madhuswamy said permission would be given for one-time movement of labourers and others who want to go from one district to other for work or any other purpose. Those operating industry or establishment and want to move from place to place for management purpose will be given passes with strict scrutiny and through checks.

Responding to a question, the minister said, "we don't know yet how many are willing to go, where they will go, if some one asks for permission, we will permit." "One family or two or three people want to go, they can use taxi. If too many people want to go, we will provide facility through transport corporation buses," he said.

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Agencies
July 5,2020

Dubai, Jul 5: Three Indians, who were repatriated on a chartered flight from the UAE on Friday, have been held in the state of Rajasthan after officials seized gold worth Dh2.2million from them, the government announced on Saturday.

They are likely to be placed under arrest along with 11 others, who were repatriated from Saudi Arabia, from whom gold worth Dh5.5million was seized, a statement from the government tweeted by Press Information Bureau in Rajasthan said.

The gold bars were hidden in emergency lamps, photos attached to the tweets showed.

The 14 passengers had arrived at the Jaipur International Airport by two chartered flights.

They were intercepted by the Customs team at the airport and 31.9kg of gold valued at Rs156,759,820 (Dh7.7million) concealed in the baggage was recovered from these passengers.

Three passengers arrived from Ras Al Khaimah by Spice Jet Flight SG9055 and 12 gold bars/bricks weighing 9.3kg valued at Rs.45,761,100 (Dh2.2million) were recovered from them, the statement said.

The Indian Consulate in Dubai confirmed to Gulf News that the flight was chartered by a private company for repatriating its employees.

It is suspected that the passengers were used as carriers to smuggle gold.

The other 11 accused had arrived from Riyadh and 22.65kg of gold bars, predominantly with Suisse markings, valued at Rs110,998,720 (Dh5.5million) were recovered from them.

“The said recovered gold bars have been seized under Section 110 of the Customs Act, 1962. The said passengers are being interrogated and are likely to be placed under arrest in terms of section 104 of the Customs Act, 1962,” the statement added.

Indian media had earlier reported similar cases in which stranded Indians were apparently lured to be carriers for smuggling gold on repatriation flights from various countries.

A spike in gold smuggling attempts using Indians getting repatriated after losing jobs was also reported from the Indian state of Kerala.

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