Bank a/c theft case: Accused planned to use “sim swap” and stolen info

After gaining access to the information of five corporate bank accounts from two major banks, the alleged scammers were planning to use the sim swap method to misuse the information, according to the police

After gaining access to the information of five corporate bank accounts from two major banks, the alleged scammers were planning to use the sim swap method to misuse the information, according to the police.

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“There are five screenshots of five different accounts. Now, we cannot be sure where they came from. If the phone number attached with the bank account is accessed, rest of the account-related information was in those pictures already,” said Bhagyashree Navatake, deputy commissioner of police (DCP), cyber-crime cell and economic offence wing (EOW), Pune.

Five pictures, which are suspected by the police to be screenshots of a banking system, were recovered by the police from the arrested people. Each screenshot pertained to one account and contained 17-18 data points of a particular bank account.

All the bank accounts were corporate accounts with one of them being dormant while the others had recent activity on it, according to the police.

Collectively, the balance in the bank accounts made up for ₹216 crore. Whether the arrested people were planning two siphon the entire amount or kept all the accounts as an option is yet to be known, according to the police.

While the information about four of the five accounts came from Hyderabad, one came from Gujarat.

Anagha Modak (40), a stockbroker by profession and the one who is currently considered to be one of the main conspirators in the case, was trying to make use of a hacker to gain access to the accounts while she had allegedly demanded ₹2.5 crore in cash from the three alleged benefactors - Rohan Mankani, AM news channel owners - Sharma and Sandhbu.

Mankani was found along with a man named Sudhir Shantilal Bhatevara alias Jain (54) who claimed to only be helping his friend Mankani with the money and claimed that he was not involved in anything else in the plan.

Jain, a resident of Sun Empire Society in Sinhagad road area of Pune, was the one person who was not arrested by the police during the initial raid. He was found with cash worth ₹25 lakh which was seized by the police.

“He was nowhere to be found for two days after he was served with a notice (which required him to be available at home for investigation). He was then arrested from Pune itself,” said DCP Navatake.

While the police are still investigating where the detailed information about the bank accounts came from, they are speaking to the officials of the two major banks whose accounts’ information has been compromised.

At least one other person who is suspected to have helped with the information to Modak is on the run from the police since the news of the arrests was published.

The people arrested so far include Anagha Modak (40) a resident of Vadgaon; Ravindra Mahadev Mashalkar (34), a resident of Ambejogai road in Latur; Mukesh Harishchandra More (37), a resident of Yerawada in Pune; Rajshekhar Yadaiha Mamidi (34), a resident of Hyderabad; Rohan Ravindra Mankani (37), a resident of Sahakarnagar in Pune; Vishal Dhananjay Bendre (45), a resident of Aurangabad; Atmaram Harishchandra Kadam (34), a resident of Mulund in Mumbai; Varun Shrikadam Verma (37), a resident of Meerut in Uttar Pradesh; Vikaschand Mahendrakumar Yadav (25), a resident of Surat in Gujarat; Rajesh Munnalal Sharma (42), a resident of Aurangabad and Paramjitsingh Sindhu (42), a resident of Aurangabad; Lakshminarayan Gattu alias Sonya (32), a resident of Baudhanagar in Varasigude in Hyderabad, and Vyankatesh Subramanium Uppala (40), a resident of Bhandalaguda in Nagol region of Hyderabad; and Sudhir Shantilal Bhatevara alias Jain (54).

While the others were remanded to judicial custody, Jain is in police custody.