Cyber cops arrest 4 from Bengaluru for ₹20-crore FASTag fraud

The city cyber police have cracked a major inter-state FASTag fraud racket and arrested four members of a group from Bengaluru for stealing ₹20 crore through unauthorized

The city cyber police have cracked a major inter-state FASTag fraud racket and arrested four members of a group from Bengaluru for stealing ₹20 crore through unauthorized bank transactions. The accused took advantage of loopholes in a private bank’s e-wallet system for FASTag and carried out over 4,000 unauthorised transactions. Police, however, managed to recover over ₹7 crore by freezing the bank accounts involved in the fraud.

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FASTag is an electronic toll collection system operated by the National Highway Authority of India, with nearly two dozen banks presently offering the service through their e-wallets.

The police arrested Purshottam Revanna, Kiran Manju, Rajesh Shivanna, and Prakash Shivanna alias Rasanna on Sunday for their involvement in the scam. The mastermind of the racket is still at large, the police said.

Santosh Rastogi, joint commissioner of police (crime), confirmed the development and said the investigation is on as more accused are wanted.

On January 25, the complainant private bank registered a first information report (FIR) with the cyber police station after their executives detected the fraud.

According to the police, the accused knew the loophole of the bank’s system and would access the system by impersonating vehicle owners who had bought FASTags or purchased top-ups. They would then claim that incorrect details of the vehicles had been uploaded. The system would refund the money immediately into the desired bank account, said a senior police officer.

“Using the flaw of the system, between January 18 and 24, the accused caused a loss of ₹20 crore to the bank. After the fraud was reported, we immediately put our men on the job and on Sunday arrested four people from Bengaluru,” said Vishal Thakur, deputy commissioner of police (cyber).

“We have managed to save over ₹7 crore of the fraud money by freezing the bank accounts used in the offence,” Thakur said.

During the investigation, police learnt that the fraud money had been transferred into 500 bank accounts across the country. There is a possibility of the involvement of more than one group behind the crime, another officer said.

The four accused have been charged under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for cheating, forgery, and misuse of computer resources to commit the offence under the Information Technology Act. The accused have been remanded in police custody till February 7.