2 inter-state fraudsters held by Telangana CID for fingerprint-based online fraud

HYDERABAD: Cyber Crime team of the Crime Investigation Department (CID) has arrested two inter-state fraudsters who engaged in fraudulent activities involving the illicit use of fingerprints extracted from property registration documents for unauthorised online money withdrawals.

The two accused were identified as Safat Alam (21) and Ranjit Sah (29). The duo were arrested by the Cyber Crime team of CID in Bengaluru, Karnataka and Kishanganj, Bihar. In a press statement issued on Tuesday, officials said that the victim, a retired Government employee with savings bank accounts at the State Bank of India (SBI) at St.Mary’s Road Branch. He noticed four unauthorised transactions (Rs 10,000, Rs 10,000, Rs 2,000 and Rs 2,000) carried out on December 4 and 5, 2022, totalling Rs 24,000.

As a result of these unauthorised transactions, the victim requested appropriate action against the culprits involved. Consequently, a case was registered vide Cr. No. 06/2022 of CID and the investigation was undertaken by the Cyber Crime division of CID. Explaining the modus operandi of the accused, the officials said that the accused collected sale deeds and other documents particularly from the Registration and Revenue Departments as well as other department servers of various States including aadhaar numbers and bank names.

The accused developed silicon fingerprints by using the fingerprints available on the documents. Later, the accused, with the cooperation and coordination of the Customer Service Points (CSPs), fraudulently obtained documents with fingerprints and used them to withdraw the amounts from the bank accounts of innocent customers by using the Aadhaar enabled Payment System (AePS). Only Aadhaar number and fingerprint, bank name were enough to make these transactions, the officials said.

The investigation officers identified the accused with the help of bank accounts, which were used to remit amounts through fraudulent transactions and CDRs of mobile phones used for these transactions and other stakeholders of AePS, the officials said.