Mumbai: After six missed calls on a businessman’s phone based in Mumbai from 11 PM on December 27 to 2 AM on December 28, 2018, he allegedly lost Rs 1.86 crores.
The Mumbai Mirror reported that the hackers had allegedly got a new SIM card in his name and deactivated his old SIM card through the missed calls. The plan was to hack into and steal money from the businessman’s 14 accounts across the country.
The victim, Mr Shah, became a victim of the SIM swapping fraud. At around 2 am in the morning, he had received 6 missed calls on his phone number. He had six missed calls from two numbers on his mobile phone and one of the numbers seemed to be of UK since it had the +44 code.
In the morning when the businessman tried dialling the numbers, he realised that his SIM card could no longer be used. The hackers had allegedly deactivated his number.
The businessman had linked all the details of his company’s account to his mobile phone. This new scam is known as SIM swapping. Here the scammers get hold of your unique SIM number and can swap your SIM by calling on your phone.
Later when the victim tried to inquire with the mobile service provider, he was told that his SIM card was deactivated after a request was made in his name for a new SIM card.
After the scam was revealed, the bank tried to get the money back but was only able to recover 20 lakhs. The rest of the amount has not been recovered yet.
The BKC Cyber Crime Police Station has registered a case under section 420 (cheating), 419 (impersonation) and 34 (criminal act done by several people in furtherance of common intention) and sections 43 (damage to the computer system) and 66D (impersonation) of the Information Technology Act.