One more arrested in Cosmos Bank heist case
TNN | Mar 20, 2019, 12:13 IST
Picture used for representational purpose onlyPUNE: The cybercrime cell of the Pune police on Monday arrested one more person in the Rs94-crore Cosmos Bank online heist case.
However, the police have yet to zero in on the masterminds involved in planning, establishing the virtual server, stealing data, cloning the cards and executing the crime.
With Monday’s arrest, a total of 12 people have been arrested so far in the case. The city police claimed to have successfully busted the local module involved in the crime, and have tracked down suspects to the other states, including Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu.
A team headed by inspector Jayram Paigude arrested Nadeem Akbarali Shaikh (35), hailing from Wazirgang in Uttar Pradesh and staying at Agripada in Mumbai. Shaikh works in a shoe manufacturing unit in Mumbai.
“Last August, Shaikh received 12 fabricated cards that he used extensively to withdraw Rs5 lakh,” Paigude said.
“After handing over the cash, Shaikh left Mumbai and started living in Uttar Pradesh. We arrested him from his native place,” Paigude said.
Police said Shaikh, an illiterate man, was part of the Mumbai-Thane-Bhiwandi module, which withdrew Rs85 lakh from the different ATM kiosks in Mumbai and Thane. “Shaikh was also one of the men that withdrew cash using fabricated cards of the City Union Bank in Chennai. The suspects had withdrawn the cash in the same fashion after breaching the server of City Union Bank,” police said.
Shaikh is closely associated with Rafique Ansari, another man arrested in this case.
Of the 11 men arrested earlier, five have been involved in the City Union Bank case. Shaikh is the sixth man wanted in both cases, police said.
“We had written to the government authorities of 41 countries to help us nab the prime suspects and solve the case. However, only 10 countries have replied positively. These 10 countries are helping us identity the suspects (all local residents of the respective countries) who had withdrawn cash from local ATMs,” a senior officer involved in the probe told TOI.
In a stunning heist, on August 11 and 13 last year, the criminals had hacked the online systems of Cosmos Bank and siphoned off Rs94.42 crore via transactions made in several countries.
At the moment, the police are on the hunt of the mastermind(s) that stole the vital data and created the parallel virtual server of the bank for a few hours to receive the hits from the ATM centres. The main server of the bank did not receive any of these hits; all the transactions were approved by the virtual server.
However, the police have yet to zero in on the masterminds involved in planning, establishing the virtual server, stealing data, cloning the cards and executing the crime.
With Monday’s arrest, a total of 12 people have been arrested so far in the case. The city police claimed to have successfully busted the local module involved in the crime, and have tracked down suspects to the other states, including Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu.
A team headed by inspector Jayram Paigude arrested Nadeem Akbarali Shaikh (35), hailing from Wazirgang in Uttar Pradesh and staying at Agripada in Mumbai. Shaikh works in a shoe manufacturing unit in Mumbai.
“Last August, Shaikh received 12 fabricated cards that he used extensively to withdraw Rs5 lakh,” Paigude said.
“After handing over the cash, Shaikh left Mumbai and started living in Uttar Pradesh. We arrested him from his native place,” Paigude said.
Police said Shaikh, an illiterate man, was part of the Mumbai-Thane-Bhiwandi module, which withdrew Rs85 lakh from the different ATM kiosks in Mumbai and Thane. “Shaikh was also one of the men that withdrew cash using fabricated cards of the City Union Bank in Chennai. The suspects had withdrawn the cash in the same fashion after breaching the server of City Union Bank,” police said.
Shaikh is closely associated with Rafique Ansari, another man arrested in this case.
Of the 11 men arrested earlier, five have been involved in the City Union Bank case. Shaikh is the sixth man wanted in both cases, police said.
“We had written to the government authorities of 41 countries to help us nab the prime suspects and solve the case. However, only 10 countries have replied positively. These 10 countries are helping us identity the suspects (all local residents of the respective countries) who had withdrawn cash from local ATMs,” a senior officer involved in the probe told TOI.
In a stunning heist, on August 11 and 13 last year, the criminals had hacked the online systems of Cosmos Bank and siphoned off Rs94.42 crore via transactions made in several countries.
At the moment, the police are on the hunt of the mastermind(s) that stole the vital data and created the parallel virtual server of the bank for a few hours to receive the hits from the ATM centres. The main server of the bank did not receive any of these hits; all the transactions were approved by the virtual server.
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