Pune-based Cosmos Bank fraudsters looted another bank, says SIT

The Rs 33 crore fraud on City Union Bank was committed with the help of cloned debit cards which they used at ATMs in Bengaluru, a senior official.

Four suspects involved in the Rs.94.42 crore Cosmos Bank online theft had used similar modus operandi in December 2017 to siphon off Rs 33.93 crore from City Union Bank in Bengaluru.

Three foreign banks approached through Interpol have responded positively to the SIT on the Cosmos Bank malware attack case. (HT PHOTO)

This massive cyber fraud on the Chennai-based bank was pulled off with the help of cloned cards, senior investigating officials, here said on Tuesday. Four of the seven accused, who have been arrested in the case, have confessed to committing similar crimes in four other banks, police said.

These startling details have emerged in the interrogation of the four accused, according to the Special Investigation Team (SIT). They were identified by the police as Shaikh Mohammad Abdul Jabbar (28) and Fahim Azim Khan (30), both from Sillod in Aurangabad district; Naresh Maharana from Palghar and Yustace Augustine Vaz alias Anthony (41) from Jogeshwari East, Mumbai.

The Rs 33 crore fraud on City Union Bank was committed with the help of cloned debit cards which they used at ATMs in Bengaluru, a senior official.

Jyotipriya Singh, deputy commissioner of police (Economic Offences Wing and cyber cell), said, “Their absolute involvement has been revealed in the CCTV footage we have obtained from the ATMs related to City Union Bank, an FIR of which was registered in December 2017. The offence was undetected so far and we have been able to establish the links of these accused in the Rs 33 crore cyber fraud in Chennai through CCTV footage. The accused will be handed over to Chennai police for further investigation in the case.”

Singh described their confession as a major breakthrough in the case and said that the SIT was focusing its attention on nabbing the mastermind in India and through his arrest, unravel the international linkages of the organised cybercrime criminals.

Meanwhile, three foreign banks approached through Interpol have responded positively to the SIT on the Cosmos Bank malware attack case. These are banks based in France and Hong Kong, besides another in a Latvian nation, said DCP Singh.

As many as 12,000 transactions worth Rs 78 crore and 2,849 transactions worth Rs 2.50 crore through Rupay Debit cards and three transactions worth Rs 13.92 crore were committed under the fraud. It was on August 14 that Cosmos Bank publicly revealed the theft of Rs 94.42 crore from the pool account by a multinational hacking ring on August 11 and August 13.

In the first hit, the bank lost an aggregate of Rs 80.50 crore in multiple ATM swipes in 28 countries, while in the second attack, the hackers siphoned off Rs 13.92 crore via Swift transfers.

An FIR at Chatuhshrungi police station was lodged by the bank’s managing director Suhas Subhash Gokhale (53) under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections relating to theft, cheating, conspiracy and other sections of the Information Technology Act, 2008.