Theft of money of NRIs: One held for helping Nigerian

An inter-State cheat Sankar Bera of Midnapore of West Bengal was arrested by Cyber Crime police here for aiding and providing his bank account details to the Nigerian hackers, who hack bank accounts, particularly of NRIs and fraudulently transfer amounts through RTGS in the accounts of Indians.

According to the police, an NRI L. Jagan Mohan Rao, lodged a complaint in January this year alleging that some fraudsters hacked his bank account details and transferred Rs 8 lakh to HDFC bank at New Delhi and another Rs 2 lakh into ICICI bank Purulia, West Bengal. The CCS Cyber police registered a case under relevant penal sections and took up investigation.

The investigating officer obtained the KYC and account statements of the beneficiary account of ICICI bank, Purulia in West Bengal belonging to accused Sankar Bera wherein Rs 2 lakh was credited through NEFT. Based on the inputs collected, the CCS Cyber Crime police apprehended Sankar Bera, 22 years this morning.

During interrogation, Sankar Bera admitted that last year one OBAKC, a Nigerian contacted him through Yahoo Messenger chatting and they became friends. While chatting, OBAKC asked him to provide his bank details so that he could transfer funds after hacking bank accounts of NRIs for which he would get 20% commission.

Accordingly, he gave his ICICI bank details of Purulia Branch to OBAKC on his mail ID. In the second week of December last, an amount of Rs 2 lakh was transferred through NEFT into his ICICI bank account. He withdrew the amount and after taking his share of Rs 40,000, sent the remaining amount to Nigerian OBAKC through Perfect Money transfer. The police seized one laptop having chat history and mail correspondence between him and OBAKC and sent him to judicial custody.

In this regard, the Cyber police appealed to the bankers to be very careful while initiating the net banking. Before transferring funds, it is imperative to contact the account holder and mandate holder personally on the given mobile numbers and addresses in KYC. (NSS)