Cyber criminals targeted a former Director-General and Inspector-General of Police under the pretext of updating his bank account and used his OTP to transfer ₹68,000 out of his account.
Acting on a complaint by Shankar M. Bidari, the South East Cybercrime Police have registered a case against unknown persons charging them under various sections of the IT Act, 2000. In his complaint, Mr. Bidari told the police that he received a message on his phone instructing him to update his KYC details. The message also warned that the account would be blocked if the KYC details were not updated.
A few minutes later he received a call from a person claiming that he was calling from the bank’s helpline. The person said that he would update his KYC details, and asked for the OTP number. Mr. Bidari gave the OTP and immediately realised he should not have shared it. Within a second ₹68,000 had been transferred out of his account. He called the bank to raise a complaint before approaching the police.
The police have stepped up investigations and asked the bank officials to freeze the transaction. In March this year, cyber criminals hacked into his email account and cheated one of his contacts of ₹25,000.
Prior to that, unknown persons had hacked into the bank account of former DG&IGP Ajai Kumar Singh. The hackers had made more than 60 transactions to siphon off ₹2.13 lakh from his account.
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