Vizag: How cybercriminal posed as businessman and looted Rs 29 lakh from Union Bank

Investigation into Union Bank fraud has revealed that the negligence of employees helped cyber crooks to siphon off Rs 29 lakh.

Inspector, Cybercrimes police station, K Bhavani Prasad said Mahalakshmi Auto Agency has a current account in Union Bank, Dwarakanagar branch, in Vizag.

A bank employee received a WhatsApp message and a call from a person a few days ago. The man claimed himself to be the owner of the agency and spoke in English. He told the employee that his chequebook has been exhausted and he needs to deposit the money into an account immediately. He sent a message with the account number to which money must be transferred.

Believing that the caller is the owner of Agency Vamsikrishna, the bank transferred Rs3.9 lakh to the bank account. A few minutes later, the bank employees received a message to transfer Rs. 8.7 lakh, Rs8.6 lakh, and Rs7.8 lakh to three more accounts. The bank staff transferred the amount to those accounts.

The owner of the agency was shocked after he found that the amounts were transferred from his account without his notice and called the bank staff. The employees of the bank were also shocked that they were cheated by cyber crooks. The bank officials froze the accounts (to the tune of Rs15 lakh) of the accused and approached the police.

"Our investigation has revealed that the bank staff transferred the amount from the account without verifying the phone number linked with the account. The negligence of the staff was the main reason for the cyber fraud," Bhavani Prasad added.

City police chief Ch Srikanth held a meeting with the staff of the Union bank of five districts to make them aware of the latest trends of cyber frauds. None from the Dwarakanagar branch attended the meeting.

"We have formed special teams to investigate the case from various angles to identify the cyber crooks, who operated from Gujarat and Delhi," added Srikanth.