CID’s Cyber Crime team nabs two inter-state fraudsters for fingerprint-based online fraud
Hyderabad, Aug 29 : The Cyber Crime team of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has successfully apprehended two inter-state fraudsters who engaged in fraudulent activities involving the illicit use of fingerprints extracted from property registration documents for unauthorized online money withdrawals.
The accused were apprehended in Bengaluru, Karnataka, and Kishanganj, Bihar.
According to a police statement released on Tuesday, the victim, a retired government servant with a savings bank account at the State Bank of India’s St. Mary’s Road Branch, discovered four unauthorized transactions (amounting to Rs. 10,000, Rs. 10,000, Rs. 2,000, and Rs. 2,000) carried out on December 4 and 5, 2022, totaling Rs. 24,000. These transactions were conducted without the account holder’s knowledge.
Prompted by these unauthorized activities, the victim sought appropriate action against the perpetrators. Consequently, a case was registered under Cr. No. 06/2022 at CID P.S., and the investigation was undertaken by the Cyber Crime division of CID.
The modus operandi of the criminals involved the collection of sale deeds and related documents, often sourced from the Registration and Revenue Departments as well as other governmental servers across different states. These documents contained crucial information, including Aadhaar numbers and bank names. The fraudsters ingeniously developed silicon fingerprints by utilizing the fingerprints found on the acquired documents.
Subsequently, with the cooperation and coordination of Customer Service Points (CSPs), the criminals fraudulently procured documents with these manufactured fingerprints. These documents were then employed to withdraw funds from the bank accounts of unsuspecting victims, utilizing the Aadhaar-enabled Payment System (AePS). The perpetrators only required the Aadhaar number, fingerprint, and bank name to execute these transactions.
