The Cybercrime Police Station, Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Bengaluru arrested four people who siphoned off money from bank accounts of online customers after capturing their financial credentials through e-commerce portals designed by the racketeers.

The arrested are Kapil Dev Suman alias Ajay Singh and Sooraj Kumar, both residents of Bengaluru and natives of Bokaro Steel City in Jharkhand and Sushil Kumar Suman and Bipla, both residents of Bokaro.

The suspects used to capture and save bank details keyed in by online customers for their e-commerce purchases for discounted rates.

Their modus operandi, called bottom phishing, was so meticulous that there was neither a transaction nor a delivery of the product leaving the customers to think it is a failed transaction. But customers were unaware that their banking details were captured.

Later, the suspects withdrew small amounts ranging from Rs 1,000 to Rs 5,000 so that customers did not panic. Several such victims would hesitate to approach the police.

The sleuths stumbled upon 16,000 bank accounts, 600 e-commerce domains, 460 SIM cards, 15 mobile phones, laptops, hard drives and other accessories from the accused.

Suresh Sakri, a resident of Bengaluru complained to the Cybercrime police on July 13 stating that Rs 5,000 and Rs 2,000 had disappeared from his account on two different occasions without his knowledge. An FIR was registered and the police discovered that it was remitted to Idea money e-wallet and SBI Buddy from where it had gone to an SBM account in J P Nagar. The sleuths then found that the bank account was opened in a fake name – Ajay Singh.

Since the photograph was of Kapil Dev Suman, the police traced him and picked him up along with his associate Sooraj Kumar. Searches revealed that they had details of 28 bank accounts on one laptop, two mobile phones and four forged PAN cards.

Sniffing a larger racket, three teams were formed to bust it – a technical team to analyse phone records, websites and e-mail IDs and to ascertain the role of web designer/s who designed these portals, a banking team to analyse bank accounts and transaction details and a physical team which left for Bokaro Steel City to arrest the two others from whom the data of bank accounts, Internet domains, SIM cards and other gadgets were seized.

All the four suspects were in their early 20s and had come to study diploma in engineering from a reputable college in Bengaluru but dropped out, the police said. They used to travel by air, lived a lavish life with expensive electronic gadgets and stayed in star hotels, the police added. The police have no clue how much money they swindled and how many victims were cheated.

4 diploma dropouts held for cheating many in phishing scam