Gurgaon: Rs19 crore goes missing from mobile wallet MobiKwik’s account

MobiKwik Systems Private Limited stated that money which was supposed to be deducted from the wallet of customers’ accounts got deducted from the firm’s personal account

Digital wallet firm, MobiKwik, has reported Rs19 crore missing from its accounts on Tuesday. After scanning the records and accounts, the firm could not ascertain where the money had gone and detected something unusual in the accounts that hinted at a fraud.

Cases of online fraud in the city have been on the rise in the recent past. (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The company officials reported the matter to the police on Tuesday following which an FIR was filed on Wednesday.

In the complaint, MobiKwik Systems Private Limited, stated that money which was supposed to be deducted from the wallet of customers’ accounts, got deducted from the firm’s personal account. The complaint was filed by a general counsel of the company.

A case was registered with the Sector 53 police station on Wednesday under sections 420 (fraud) and 406 (criminal breach of trust) of the IPC. The case has been referred to the cyber crime cell wing.

“We received the case today and we are studying the details. The firm has claimed a fraud of Rs 19 crore, however, we will verify the details soon,” Anand Yadav, incharge of cyber crime cell, Gurgaon.

Any involvement of internal staff or a specific bug cannot be ruled out, Yadav said.

“It is too early to come to any conclusion. We will take a few days to investigate the matter and will also have to identify when this problem started,” he said.

“We detected a fraud by some unidentified persons. We reassure our users that their data and money are safe have not been compromised. We have taken immediate action by lodging an FIR with the Gurgaon police cyber cell,” a MobiKwik spokesperson said.

Cases of online fraud in the city have been on the rise in the recent past. According to police records, 2,270 cases related to cyber crime were registered with the cyber crime cell in 2016. It works out to a 15% increase from 1,923 such cases registered in 2015.

This year, as many as 1,260 cases related to online banking fraud and cheating through credit and debit cards have been registered, police said.