Hyderabad: How nine-member gang breached banking system to withdraw cash using fingerprint cloning

Hyderabad: Cybercrime police have busted a nine-member gang that was withdrawing cash from banks using fingerprint cloning.

Six members have been arrested and three are on the run. The gang looted Rs 10 lakh through an unauthorized transaction using fingerprint cloning.

The accused have been identified as N Asadharan, Rafi, S.Uday Kiran, Md. Iyaz, Ch. Narendra, R.Shiva Krishna, and K.Srinu.

N. Asadharan is the mastermind in this case, He created merchant IDs and opened the bank accounts.

Rafi and Uday Kiran are experts in editing the picsart application. They create land registration document collection (soft copies) for fingerprint cloning.

Mohammed Iyaz who gave technical support withdraws money through ATM.

Ch. Narendra is a supplier of land registration documents.

M. Yuvaraju was a trainer in the gang.

R. Shiva Krishna was arranging the merchant's ID Persons along with Aadhar & PAN Cards

K. Srinu is a Merchant ID Holder of Fino Payments Bank.

M. Tarun is also an account holder of Union Bank

Joint Commissioner of Police, Crimes & SIT, Hyderabad City, Dr. Gajarao Bhupal said they received a complaint from T. Naresh, Regional Head of Fino Payments Bank Ltd, Hyderabad. In his complaint, he said one of the accused K. Srinu enrolled as a Business Correspondent for providing banking services using POS (Point of Sale) and the bank’s merchant portal. Accordingly, he was allotted a terminal ID.

On September 25, the Bank received a complaint from the National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI), regarding the Fraudulent transactions carried out on K. Srinu Terminal ID using the Aadhar Enabled Payment System (AEPS).

During the investigation, it was revealed that the accused persons formed a gang to get easy money through the AEPS. As per their plan, they ordered an IMAGE PACK STAMP MACHINE on the Flipkart app and bought a Seemandhar Machine (Heat Machine), polymer Liquid (Gel), Transparent A4 papers, and AB powder.

"In July, one of the accused Ch. Narendra who is a childhood friend of another accused Uday, supplied up to 2500 land registration document files in soft copies (including fingerprints) through a pen drive to Asadharan and Mohammed Iyaz. They cloned 1000 fingerprints," said the Joint Commissioner.

According to their plan, they have opened various bank accounts and Merchant IDs. So far they made up to 2500 AEPS (Aadhar Enabled payment system) transactions through different Merchant IDs. Later they used to share the money.

The investigation team ensured that an amount of Rs. Five lakh is returned to the victims through the bank out of the lost amount of Rs.10 lakh as of date.

Police have seized: Seemandhar Poly Stamper Machine -1, 2. Trodat gel bottle -1, Transparent papers -3, Eight Mobile Phones, Two Laptops, 13 Debit Cards, 8 SIM Cards, One Pen drive, and one Biometric Machine from the accused persons.

Advisory

1. People are advised not to fall prey to schemes and plans that show easy money and high returns on investments.

2. Use Aadhar data confidentially and do not reveal it anywhere unless it is required.

3. People are advised to cross-check their account balance and transaction statements periodically and report any fraudulent transactions immediately.

4. Youth are warned to be aware of job fraud and be careful before using their fingerprints or bio-metric data anywhere.

5. Any misuse of confidential databases will attract severe legal and penal action by the concerned authorities. Hence custodians of the confidential database are liable to be punished in case of data breach.