In the recent groundbreaking report of the cybersecurity lapse, some cyber criminals cheated for a whopping amount of ₹ 1 Crore. The reports suggest that the cyber goons were inspired through the famous Netflix drama “Money Heist”. The case registered under the jurisdiction of Uttar Pradesh Police has said that the criminals were contacting people over WhatsApp and Telegram, and in the same way they ransomed an amount of 1 Crore from a Noida based Businessman.
The arrests came after a businessman lodged an FIR at the Cyber Crime police station in Noida, stating that he had been defrauded of Rs 1 crore by unknown individuals who made unauthorized fund transfers from his bank account. Inspector Reeta Yadav, the in-charge of the police station, said two men — Ritesh Chaturvedi alias Amit Singh and Rishabh Jain alias Prince Thakur — were arrested on Sunday in the case. The duo hacked the email id of the complainant’s company which was linked with its bank account, used a virtual private network, dark web, SIM cards bought on forged IDs, and used a technique to bypass the OTP sent on a registered mobile number for the fraud, Yadav said.
The Lady Officer further said,
Once the accused took over control of the bank account, they transferred Rs 1 crore into four different bank accounts, which were also made on forged identities. The funds were then converted into cryptocurrencies using an e-wallet on USDT. The criminals joined more than 15 groups on WhatsApp and Telegram by naming themselves after the characters of the web series. Fake sim cards, and international mobile numbers were used with names from the show. Chaturvedi went by the name ‘Professor’ while Jain was named ‘Rio’ on the virtual platforms.
She mentioned that the technological assets involved in the incident of May were taken into custody, and the First Information Report was filed according to Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act. From the pair’s belongings, a vehicle, a laptop, 11 cell phones, 25 SIM cards, 23 debit cards, and various other objects were confiscated. Triveni Singh, the Superintendent of Police for UP Cyber Crime, declared a prize of Rs 25,000 for the law enforcement squad that successfully solved the case, as per reports.
