BENGALURU: The Karnataka Cyber Command has arrested four persons in connection with a fraud known as the ‘Boss Scam’, in which fraudsters impersonated the president of a deemed-to-be university and tricked an accountant into transferring Rs 1.40 crore from the institution’s bank account.
The arrested are Annayya (25), a resident of KR Puram in Bengaluru; Buspalli Ravikumar Reddy (26) from Ananthapura in Andhra Pradesh; Ambaraya (39) from Afzalpura in Kalaburagi and Syed Wajihuddin Quadri (25) from Khairatabad in Hyderabad.
Police said, Santosh AS, an employee of the university, approached the South Division Cyber Police on September 9 and filed a complaint stating that an unidentified person had created a fake WhatsApp profile using the photograph of university president Dr Chenraj Roychand. On September 8, the fraudster, posing as the president, contacted the university’s accountant, Vinay Bhushan, through WhatsApp and initially enquired about the balance in the institution’s bank account. Later, the fraudster instructed the accountant to transfer Rs 1.40 crore, following which the amount was transferred from the university’s account.
The police said the investigation revealed that the accused had first sent a ZIP file to the institution’s staff. After the file was opened, they allegedly gained access to the system through the Chrome browser and logged into WhatsApp Web. They downloaded institutional data without the staff’s knowledge and monitored the university’s financial transactions for 15 to 20 days.
Using the information gathered, the accused allegedly impersonated the university president and communicated with the accountant before directing him to transfer the funds to accounts controlled by them. Foreign IP addresses were also used during the transactions, the police said.
Based on technical investigation, the police arrested four persons and recovered Rs 8.50 lakh in cash. Another accused, identified as Sunny, is absconding and is yet to be traced, the police said, adding that the investigation also revealed that the accused had allegedly used more than 60 mule bank accounts in connection with 22 online fraud cases across several states, the police added.