Rs 1.4 lakh first recovery in Cosmos Bank heist case

PUNE: Police on Tuesday made the first recovery in the Cosmos Cooperative Bank’s online heist case and collected Rs1.4 lakh from people withdrawing cash using their ATM cards after finding additional funds in their accounts during the malware attack on the bank’s server.
Deputy commissioner of police (cyber & economics) Jyoti Priya Singh and senior inspectors Radhika Phadke and Jayram Paigude made the recovery on Tuesday. “These people are regular customers of the bank. They were identified after scanning the footage and ATM machines’ logs,” a senior officer said.

He said, “These people were not related to the suspects or the crime but failed to overcome their temporary greed. They returned the money as soon as they received calls from the police.”

Many people were called on Tuesday and they returned the withdrawn money. “On Tuesday, we recovered Rs1.4 lakh. More people have promised to return the money,” the officer said.

“This recovery will be considered as domestic recovery. We are still working on the case in which money was sent out of the country,” the officer said.

Unidentified persons siphoned off Rs94.42 crore from the bank between August 11 and 13 by hacking its different accounts. It was a malware attack on the server of the bank. The suspects hacked the data of the different cards issued by the bank and used an online platform to transfer money. It was in operation in Hong Kong.

According to the police, many people visited different ATM kiosks of the bank during the malware attack and found that their accounts had additional funds. Instead of alerting the bank about it, many people withdrew money by visiting different ATM kiosks of the bank.

According to the bank’s complaint with the Chatushrungi police, the hackers stole information related to the bank’s VISA and RuPay card customers through malware attack on its ATM switch server and siphoned off Rs80.5 crore through 14,849 transactions. Of these, a total of 12,000 transactions were made through VISA cards and Rs78 crore were transferred out of the country. Another Rs2.5 crore were transferred through RuPay card within the country through 2,849 transactions.