When e-wallets burn a hole in accounts

AHMEDABAD/HIMMATNAGAR: When Prakash Vaghela, a resident of Himmatnagar, received a call from his bank he was surprised. The caller informed him that his ATM card would be blocked if his bank account details are not verified. Vaghela believed him and gave his 16-digit debit card number and the three-digit card verification value (CVV) on the back of his card. When the caller asked for the one-time password on his phone as part of the verification, Vaghela gave that as well. From October 15 to 21 last year, fraudsters managed to transfer Rs 84,993 from his SBI account. Himmatnagar police had registered a case of cheating and breach of trust.
Saurabh Singh, SP, Sabarkantha, said that working on the modus operandi, police have learnt that the money was soon transferred to five different mobile wallets. Further probe revealed that some of the wallets in question were used to make payments for electricity bills in Varachha area of Surat. A team then rounded up Narendra Amipara, 30 and Mukesh Savani, 28, both residents of Varachha, along with Nitin Khaini, 23, a resident of Kamrej. “From here, we got the connection to Jamtara district in Jharkhand, notorious for cyber fraud gangs. Khaini confessed that he was in touch with Ranjit Mandal and Tinku Mandal to get mobile wallet details for making payments,” said Singh. “The utility shop owners used to get commission for using mobile wallets for payment as the money was then transferred to Jharkhand or West Bengal-based bank accounts.” A team led by S N Parmar, in-charge inspector of SOG, Sabarkantha, was sent to Jamtara. The team, with help of Karmatar police station, traced Tinku Mandal and arrested him.

Singh said that on the basis of investigation so far, it is suspected that the group has cheated over 100 persons in Gujarat and elsewhere of over Rs 50 lakh. “While investigation is on to ascertain how the callers got information of bank account holders, Mandal claimed that they used to get random phone numbers and make calls during banking hours,” he said. “We are in the process of identifying the victims from Gujarat.” Mandal mentioned that they used multiple bank accounts for their operations and also used to pay the account holder for the same. Police have started process of freezing all bank accounts identified so far and get details on transactions.