A fine scam: CA diverts 50,000 people to fake site

Noida: The scam is the oldest one in the book — a URL close to but not quite the official one, an ID purchased from a bulk SMS provider and a number of “payment options” for a transaction. The money, of course, would not reach its intended place but to the wallet of a chartered accountant from Sector 40, who allegedly conned about 50,000 vehicles owners across the country of lakhs with his fake challan scheme since March. He was finally arrested on Sunday.
About 10 days ago, a vehicle owner informed the traffic directorate in Lucknow and Noida traffic police that a website for challans seemed suspicious. “It was a Delhi-based vehicle owner. A challan had been issued in the name of Noida traffic police. But it was a fake challan. The victim did not want to lodge an FIR but we referred it to the cyber cell,” DCP (traffic) Rajesh S told TOI.
The cops, then, played along. They used the link they had been given by the Delhi-based vehicle owner and tried to pay a challan. They checked the domain, tracked the location of the user and arrested Rajat Kucchal (36) on Sunday. He was charged under Section 420 of the IPC (cheating) and Section 66 of the IT Act (computer-related offences).
Kucchal had started his operations around March. He had worked at an insurance firm before and had allegedly stolen information about vehicle insurance holders. He then created a website to resemble the government challan website, echallan.parivahan.gov.in. It had a similar URL: echallanparivahan.in, cyber cell in charge Baljeet Singh told TOI. “The domain name could be bought for Rs 5,000-7,000. To direct people to the site, he started sending sending SMSes to the vehicle owners whose contact information he had stolen.” The bulk message service was bought online and the ID used to register was a fail-proof one: Noida traffic police.
The message would say the recipient had to pay off a challan and provide the link. After someone clicked on it and landed on the fake website, they would be offered multiple payment options — the original site only accepts payment through online banking via SBI.
“He has possibly duped around 50,000 people, who all paid up because they thought the text came from the Noida traffic police,” Singh said. In most cases, they would be unlikely to know they had been scammed.
But the Union ministry of road transport and highways recently got the fake challan website blocked and flashed a banner on the original website, flagging the fake one. “After that, he deleted most of the data from his system,” Singh said.
Police have found transactions to his account to the tune of about Rs 80 lakh in the past six months. The bank has been asked for his transaction records. Complaints are coming in from states across the country now — Delhi-NCR, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh.