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| Photo Credit: Reuters
Sivaganga The cyber crime police station of Sivaganga district has busted a Coimbatore-based gang concerned in siphoning off cash from financial institution accounts of gullible individuals with 18 individuals and seized as many as 22,735 SIM playing cards.
A crew of cyber crime police, led by Additional Superintendent of Police, Namasivayam, acted on a February 26 case of dishonest a sufferer off a sum of ₹99,887.
The sufferer had clicked a hyperlink acquired as SMS on his telephone underneath the guise of updating Know Your Customer type of a personal financial institution.
He entered private particulars on a pretend Internet banking website with seems to be just like that of the personal financial institution. He additionally entered a number of One-Time Passwords acquired on the telephone.
Later, he obtained an alert from the financial institution that ₹99,887 had been debited from his account.
The police discovered that the telephone quantity that had despatched the SMS to the sufferer was within the identify of an individual from Virudhunagar, however was lively from a location in Coimbatore.
The police additionally discovered that the telephone was switched off after remaining lively for five to 10 minutes.
The International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) of the cell quantity revealed that 80 to 90 SIM playing cards had been being utilized by the cell phone in a day. These cell numbers had been used solely to ship SMS to a number of cell numbers.
“We found that the mobile numbers were used to send bulk SMS and once a SIM had been used, the number is switched off and other mobile number is used through the same mobile device,” Mr. Namasivayam mentioned.
Tracking the situation, the Sivaganga district police reached Peelamedu the place one Shikka Marketing firm from Srinagar was operating.
The police discovered large variety of pretend SIM playing cards, SMS sending softwares working in a number of laptops and desktop computer systems.
The firm, run by a pair N. Saravanan (52) and Bharathi (48) of Veeriyapalayam Road, employed seven ladies and was paying them to ship the messages.
The police seized 22,735 SIM playing cards, 11 laptops, 19 desktop computer systems, 292 cellphones, 23 SIM modem containers, and 9 ATM playing cards with cheque books.
Interrogation of Mr. Saravanan revealed that one Syed Raghib Khursheed from Delhi had offered the pretend hyperlinks together with the cell numbers to which the spam hyperlinks had been despatched. He was paid primarily based on the quantity of SMS despatched.
Mr. Saravanan and his spouse had used SIM playing cards bought from a number of individuals.
The police have arrested 18 individuals, together with Mr. Khursheed from New Delhi. Others arrested, together with ladies, had been from Coimbatore, Tiruppur, Pollachi, Tiruchi, Thoothukudi, Tenkasi, and Tirunelveli.
Deputy Inspector General of Police (Ramanathapuram Range), M. Durai, and Sivaganga Superintendent of Police, S. Selvaraj, appreciated the crew led by the ADSP in cracking the case.
