INR 33 lakh hacked from State Bank of Mauritius

Almost six months after INR 147 crore has been transferred by the hackers from Nariman Point branch of State Bank of Mauritius, the police stated that around INR 33 lakh was routed later to a pharmaceutical company in Mumbai via Hong Kong.

In regard to this connection, a letter rogatory has been compiled by the investigators on economic offences wing and this will be sent to Special Administrative Region court of Hong Kong for procuring information about suspects. When a foreign court is requested from a court of another country - seeking for judicial and legal help, this is called a letter rogatory.

The cyber attackers who hacked the bank's system six months back, had then transferred INR 147 crore to various bank accounts in America, London and Paris. However, timely action taken by the bank stop the accused from withdrawing the complete amount and only INR 15 crore could be withdrawn by the accused, the investigators said.

A police source said that during investigation they found the money has been transferred to various foreign banks (i.e. four foreign banks). From those four foreign banks, the money was routed further to accounts of different firms and banks. The police source further added that "one such firm, Sunrens Electronics in Hong Kong, had received part of the funds that were procured through hacking. We found that Rs 33 lakh was transferred from this firm's account to the pharma firm in Mumbai. We summoned the firm's officials for questioning".

The owners of the Mumbai firm have told police that a person named Martin, who is Nigerian, placed orders for the medicine. The medicine was then sent to Nigeria. The Mumbai firm was told by Martin that the payment for medicine would be done by Sunrens. The Mumbai firm produced all the documents related to pharma product export as well as receipts. It has also produced all the documents related to money they had received. Police had now put lien on the money. So the Mumbai firm has approached court asking for withdrawing lien on their money, as it is not fetched by proceeds of crime.

» SPAMfighter News - 4/25/2019