Gang of cyber hackers busted in capital

NEW DELHI - Three people, including two foreign nationals, were arrested Saturday for duping people into giving their bank account related information and then making unauthorised financial transactions through them, police said.

The accused have been identified as Praveen Gupta, 27, a Nepali national, Promise Eke, 27, a Nigerian, and Tashi Wangchuk, 21, hailing from Sikkim.

Investigations into the case started when it was reported that money from three ICICI bank accounts was being fraudulently transferred.

“We procured the details of the purchaser as well as the delivery address given at the courier company. A police team was sent to the address of the courier company but could not find anyone,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) H.G.S. Dhaliwal said.

The hackers used to send out SMSes from ICICI Bank Call Centre. They would arrange information regarding parentage, date of birth, name of the nominee and use the information to win the confidence of the account holder.

“They would provide the same information to the account holders and in good faith the account holder would give them other important account related information. Using this, they would decode their e-bank account passwords and login IDs and place purchase orders at Future Bazaar.Com,” Dhaliwal said.

Eight laptops, 10 digital cameras, 17 Blackberry mobiles and cash worth Rs.10 lakh were recovered from them.

“We suspect several other gangs to be operating in a similar fashion,” Dhaliwal said.