A Delhi-based MBA graduate has been arrested for allegedly using internet banking to hack into user accounts and transfer money, Haryana police said.
A Haryana police spokesman today said that the accused has been identified as one Amit Sabharwal, a resident of Rohini Sector 11 in Delhi. He has an MBA degree from one of the leading institutes in the national capital.
The accused has been arrested on the basis of a complaint lodged by one Dev Gupta who alleged that a sum of Rs 1 lakh was illegally transferred to the account of a certain Vijay Chugh from her husband's HDFC account through net banking.
The complainant further reported that the fraud also involved the blocking of her husband's e-mail account and cellphone connection by those behind the fraud.
But the accused was arrested during the probe into another case of bank fraud involving one Raghav Bhalla of Pathankot.
Police said that Sabharwal landed in their net while he was in the process of removing Rs 3 lakh from Bhalla's ICICI bank account.
Police recovered ATM cards, cheque books, and a fake voter ID card in the name of Vijay Chugh from the accused and also seized mobile phones and a SIM card.
During interrogation by cyber crime police Sabharwal revealed that he would use the 'Just Dial' phone search service to gather basic information of account holders using internet banking.
He used to access e-mail IDs, bank account statements, address and other information of account holders. After hacking the e-mails, he used to obtain the customer ID being used by the target for internet banking.
In the case of the Gupta bank account fraud, he first got a duplicate Airtel SIM which cancelled the original one being used by the target. He then managed to get the net banking password from the customer care unit of HDFC bank by sending an SMS using the duplicate SIM.
But as the password was to be delivered by courier, the accused rang up the office of the courier company to get the phone number of the delivery boy.
He then collected the mail with the password before it could be delivered to the Guptas. Thereafter, he went to a cyber cafe and added two beneficiary accounts in the said HDFC bank account and transferred Rs 50,000 into each. These accounts were in the name of Vijay Chugh, an identity which was being operated by Sabharwal, police said.
