How this Mumbai tout amassed railway tickets worth Rs 15 crore

MUMBAI: Railway officials have tracked down tickets worth Rs 15 crore from a tout in Gujarat who used to corner tatkal tickets using a software that helps bypass certain procedures, thus giving him a headstart over others.
On February 17, WR's Railway Protection Force had arrested Amit Prajapati, a software engineer from Ankleshwar. Tickets worth Rs 2.59 crore were seized from him. He had created over 54,000 user IDs to book e-tickets on the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation portal.
Inspector general-cum- principal chief security commissioner (WR) A K Singh said, "After his arrest, we sought IRCTC's help to track down tickets booked by him. Analysis of user IDs from digital evidence revealed that till February 21, in all 75,657 PNRs were seized, including 10,393 future tickets worth Rs 3.09 crore."
The seizure of tickets from him, including fresh and past tickets, is considered the largest till date in the country.
Parajapati used to book tickets through illegal means through website tatkalsoftware.co.in. He also sold software in the market to touts.
The software allows an agent to hack into IRCTC's id. The agent is able to book multiple tickets in a few seconds. These tickets are then sold at premium to customers.
Officials explained that illegal software like 'ANMS', 'MAC' and 'Jaguar' would bypass IRCTC's login captcha, booking captcha and bank OTP to generate tickets, while a genuine user has to go through all these processes.
The booking process for a general user takes around 2.55 minutes, but those using these software could do it in around 1.48 minutes, they said.