Nepal Police on Wednesday rounded up 12 suspects for attempting to steal NPR 5 billion from various banks and financial institutions in the country through hacking.
According to Metropolitan Police Crime Division (MPCD), the preliminary investigation has indicated that a sum of NPR 40.7 million was stolen from Agricultural Development Bank and NPR 1.2 Million was stolen from Panas Remit in New Baneshwor, through the process known as "credential hacking".
The mastermind behind the huge financial racket has been identified as "Peter aka Kale". While the police are yet to determine the exact location of Kale, they said that he used the texting application "WeChat" for correspondence with the fixers.
The suspects have been identified as Lawang Tamang (43), Laxmi Lama Tamang (40), Nirmala Tamang (20), Nima Tamang (18), Pushparaj Khadka
(42), Bidyasagar Lamichhane (23), Shravan Kumar Shrestha (38), Sunita Shrestha (32), Shubankar Panja (30), Bijay Sah (22), and Chandara Bahadur Budha (45).
"The banks always have been making mistakes over cyber securities and the hackers are able to identify these loopholes. In a previous such incident involving Chinese nationals, source codes were stolen by people abroad and sent to people in Nepal," Janakraj Sapkota, a senior journalist and analyst, told ANI.
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The Agriculture Development Bank (ADB) has said that not a single rupee deposited in personal accounts maintained with the bank has been compromised.
Earlier this month, the Nepal police had arrested six Chinese nationals in connection with an ATM fraud in which NPR 12.54 million was withdrawn from various ATM booths across the country.