Tech-savvy brothers held as brains of 1cr e-fraud

Tech-savvy brothers held as brains of 1cr e-fraud

Delhi Duo Hacked Mulund A/C

    Police have solved the Rs 1-crore e-fraud case at a private bank in Mulund by arresting two brothers adept in software technology from New Delhi on Saturday. Fajroor Rehman Khan, 26, and Shahrukh, 23, are said to be the masterminds of not only this bank account hacking, but dozens of similar frauds amounting to crores across the country.
    “The two are college dropouts, but are very intelligent. The elder had enrolled into a software programming course while the younger is a web designer and knows software programming,” said a source.
    Acting on details given by one of the 19 persons arrested in the case till Saturday, the siblings were nabbed from their Delhi residence and brought to Mumbai on transit warrant. They were produced before a local court here on Sunday morning and remanded to police custody till March 14.
    “Initially, the brothers took the help of hackers. Later, they learnt to develop viruses and sent Trojan mails randomly. When a victim clicked on the mail, the Trojan virus got activated and sent details of the person’s computer activities — including netbanking username and password — to the accused,” said a police source.
    Using this modus operandi, the two are suspected to have carried out dozens of frauds, at least since 2006. That year, the accused were wanted by south Mumbai police station for an e-fraud, the police learned during the investigations. In 2007, they struck in Meerut and a year later, hacked into a bank account in Noida and siphoned off Rs 1.7 crore.
    On January 31 this year, the two brothers hacked into the current account of a cosmetic company in a private bank from a cellphone and transferred Rs 1 crore in just 45 minutes (between 9.15am and 10am) to 12 different bank accounts in Mumbai, Thane and Uttar Pradesh. After finding out about the fraudulent funds transfer, company director Ankur Korani, 29, asked the bank to freeze the account and approached the police.
    A Mulund police team homed in on the kingpins after the 19th arrest in the case of Sadique Hussain Khalid Sayyed, 40, an Ajmer resident, from his hideout in Mira Road on February 19. “After receiving information from Sayyed, a police team kept a watch on the movements of the two accused,” said an officer of Mulund police station. Police have so far recovered Rs 75 lakh of the Rs 1 crore that was stolen.
    Additional commissioner of police (East region) Quaiser Khalid confirmed to TOI that the brothers had been arrested by Mulund police.
    One of those arrested in the case, Sandeep Mohite alias Yashwant Mohite, 32, told the police Sayyed was the middleman between the kingpins and owners of the fake bank accounts used in the fraud. A police source said Sayyed had collected Rs 12 lakh from four account holders, handed over Rs 10 lakh to the masterminds and kept the rest. “Sayyed’s role was to inform the account holders of the cash transfers and collect it when they withdrew it. He was tracked down with the help of the mobile network location,” he added.

1 Within 45 minutes on Jan 31, hacker moves Rs 1 crore out of a cosmetics firm’s current account in a private bank in Mulund to 12 accounts in Mumbai, Thane and UP

2 Director Ankur Korani asks bank to freeze account; approaches cyber police station and the Mulund police and lodges an FIR. Police team fans out to Delhi and UP

3 Up to 19 arrests finally leads to kingpins — techsavvy brothers in Delhi. Till date, police have managed to recover Rs 75 lakh of the Rs 1 crore spirited away