Police Arrests Lead to Busting of Phishers’ Gang

The Criminal Investigation Department's (CID) cyber-crime police recently arrested a few persons thought to have carried out bank account phishing inside the Bangalore City (India), thus published deccanherald.com dated November 25, 2011.

The arrested include Mumbai's Mohammed Khafil Syed, aged 32, Abdul Khan, aged 31, Pratik D Maurya, aged 24, and Durgesh Rajput Tiwari, aged 21, along with Hyderabad's Saleem Khan, aged 36, amongst others.

Police Officers elaborated that phishing was the method launched for capturing secret financial information such as Internet-banking passwords, account numbers, payment card numbers, PINs (personal identification numbers) etc.

They also reported that some people including Abhishek Malaviya, Priya Rani, Narayan Kannan, Gurudev and Deba Prasad Chakravorthy had become victims when they answered the phishing e-mail.

An investigation was launched following the incident after the above persons, who had different bank accounts with Bangalore-based banks, filed complaints with the Police.

Evidently, those individuals victimized had first answered the phishing e-mail due to which the personal Internet-banking credentials got phished off. And as the phishers compromised the said credentials, they altered both the postal and e-mail addresses along with the cell-phone numbers of the victims so the latter wouldn't receive the banks' security notices.

Subsequently, the scammers utilized those credentials for illegal transfer of funds out of victims' accounts into many recipients' accounts at different places, including Mumbai. Police added that the phishing messages were traced to countries, particularly Nigeria. Ibnlive.in.com reported this on November 25, 2011.

Police also added that they managed in foiling the phishers' group once they detained Abdul Khan on July 27, 2011 who had allegedly transferred Rupees one lakh out of Abhishek Malviya's bank account.

Similarly Maurya, who seemingly siphoned Rupees 75,000 out of Gurudev's account, went under police's custody on July 19, 2011. Also, Syed who apparently moved Rupees one lakh out of Chakravorthy's account was arrested as well on July 17, 2011.

On October 25, 2011, police caught Tiwari after Kannan complained that he lost a lakh Rupees because of phishing. Finally, when Saleem Khan allegedly withdrew Rupees 3.02 lakhs out of Priya Rani's bank account, police held him on September 24, 2011.

Related article: Police Arrests Six Suspects Associated With TJX Credit Scam

» SPAMfighter News - 12/1/2011