BENGALURU: After demonetisation of currencies, the cyber criminals are finding new methods to cheat people. In a first of its kind case, the criminals duplicated the SIM card and defrauded an official of the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) of Rs 80,000. Since they are not able to withdraw the money, they have transferred it to online wallets like Paytm and others.
According to the Cyber crime police, the victim Spoorthi Kumar (name changed) received a call from a cyber criminal who introduced himself as a representative of an online shopping portal. “He told her that she had won a gift voucher and asked her to confirm the One Time Password (OTP) sent to her mobile. Believing this, she shared the OTP. Within a short time, Rs 80,000 was transferred from her bank account to the criminals’ digital wallets. But she did not get any alert message from the bank about the transaction,” the police said.
The incident came to light only when Spoorthi’s SIM card was deactivated.
When she approached the service provider representative, she was told that 4G has been activated to her new SIM card. The victim claimed she had not applied for a duplicate SIM. She immediately reported the incident to the police.
What police suspect
A cyber criminal, sitting in Bihar, randomly chose Spoorthi’s number. He called the customer care of the mobile service provider in her name and requested to issue 4G SIM card. The service provider then sent the OTP to Spoorthi’s number for confirmation. Simultaneously, another person from the same group called Spoorthi over phone and asked her to confirm the OTP saying she had won a gift voucher. Without cross checking, Spoorthi gave the OTP. With the help of an insider of the mobile company, they activated the new SIM, got the details of her credit/debit cards and then transferred money to their digital wallets in eight transactions in a day, investigation reveals.
After demonetisation, many transactions are being done online and hence cyber criminals have become more active than ever.
Police sources said that it is easy for the criminals to get the numbers of government employees as they are available online.
Cyber crime sources said that cyber criminals are always one step ahead: Instead of withdrawing money, they are now transferring it to their digital wallet.