10th fail cyber crooks duping people nabbed from Jharkhand
The men would withdraw money from the victim’s bank account by accessing UPI, Net banking through Aadhaar number.
The city police have busted a gang of tech savvy cyber frauds who used to dupe people of their money by just sending them APK files on their mobile phones. Interestingly, the fraudsters have not even passed Class 10.
An APK (Android Package Kit) file is a file format that contains all the data required to run an app on an Android device. It’s similar to an executable file (.exe) on Windows.
“A joint team of cyber crime cell of the Police Commissionerate Lucknow and Thana Wazirganj Police busted the gang and arrested three criminals from Margomunda area of Deoghar district of Jharkhand,” said inspector Sanjeev Kumar, Wazirganj Police Station.
“The accused have been identified as Riyaz Alam, 24, Ulfat Ansari, 32, and Niyaz Ansari, 19, all of them are 10th fail and are the residents of Jogidih village in Deoghar district from Jharkhand,” said the police.
“Despite being less educated, the three accused were experts in cyber crime and were misusing technical knowledge,” added the police.
“These thugs used to hack people’s mobile phones by sending fake APK files, links through WhatsApp and then withdraw lakhs of rupees from their bank accounts. Eleven smartphones, including an iPhone 15 Pro, and multiple android phones, several SIM cards, e-sim and a white Creta car have been recovered from the arrested criminals,” said Prashant Verma, in-charge cyber crime cell, Hazratganj.
Police investigations revealed that complaints have been filed against them in many states including Jharkhand, and further action is being taken by contacting the police of other states.
Modus operandi
The gang members used to work in a very planned manner as they used to send an APK file on WhatsApp in the name of government schemes like Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, PM Kusum Yojana. When a person downloaded the file, his phone would get completely hacked. “After the phone was hacked, all messages coming from the victim’s mobile were forwarded to the fraudsters’ mobile number. Through this, they gained access to the victim’s bank account’s UPI ID, net banking details and OTP. After this, the criminals would download the Aadhaar card of the victim from the m-Aadhaar app and other online platforms,” said the Lucknow Police press note.
“Some banks allow UPI and net banking login through Aadhaar number. Taking advantage of this facility, the fraudsters would enter the victim’s bank account and transfer money from there to their fake accounts. After the fraud, the criminals would immediately withdraw money from a nearby ATM and divide the amount among themselves so that it would be difficult to reach them,” police further added.