Alert bankers prevent Rs 120 crore cyber fraud; 7 Arrested

A joint team of the cyber cell and UP Police apprehended seven individuals involved in a massive cyber fraud targeting Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University.

Date: June 20, 2024

A significant cyber fraud involving Rs 120 crore has been foiled in Lucknow with the arrest of seven individuals by a joint team of the cyber cell and UP Police. The arrested suspects had fraudulently transferred the substantial amount from Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University (AKTU) by posing as university officials and opening a bogus account in its name, eventually directing the funds to a Gujarat-based charitable trust.

Preventing one of the biggest cyber frauds in the state, the joint team arrested the gang members on Tuesday. According to the police, the fraudsters first opened an account in the university’s name at a branch of a nationalized bank where the varsity already had an account. They then tricked the bank officials into transferring Rs 120 crore in five installments to the new account, from where the money was transferred to the Gujarat-based charitable trust’s account in another nationalized bank.

The suspicious transaction raised doubts among bank officials, who conducted an audit and discovered the fraud. The officials then informed the police, leading to the arrest of the seven men involved in the crime. The gang had procured a letter required for the transfer of funds from the public sector bank’s branch manager, Anuj Kumar Saxena, and impersonated AKTU’s authorized signatory to open the second bank account. They then procured chequebooks and transferred the money to the Gujarat-based company’s bank account.

Those arrested were identified as Devendra Prasad Prabhashankar Joshi and Uday Patel from Gujarat, Rajesh Babu from Unnao, Girish Chandra and Shailesh Kumar Raghuvanshi from Lucknow, Dastgeer Alam from Amethi, and Krishna Kant from Basti district.

The police succeeded in recovering Rs 119 crore from the accused by getting the payment stopped. DCP East Prabal Pratap Singh said the miscreants procured the email ID of the bank by contacting the bank’s branch manager, who was on vacation.

The miscreants sent a fake letter to the Jankipuram branch, where AKTU has a bank account, asking them to transfer the money to AKTU’s FD account at the Vidhan Sabha Marg branch. “The miscreants had opened a fake FD account in the name of AKTU. They then transferred the money to a company’s account and withdrew around Rs 1 crore,” the DCP said.

In his complaint on June 12, bank manager Anuj Kumar Saxena stated that during his outing in Manali on June 3, he received a call from a man who introduced himself as Dr. Shailesh Kumar Raghuvanshi, requesting his visiting card to make a fixed deposit. Saxena sent Raghuvanshi to the bank and asked a bank official to handle his case. The next day, Saxena received a call from someone identifying himself as Jai Singh, also known as NK Singh, the finance officer of AKTU, asking for the FD rate at the bank. Subsequently, Rs 49 crore, Rs 49 crore, and Rs 22 crore were transferred to the Vidhan Sabha Marg branch from the Jankipuram branch. Sensing foul play, the bank requested the Gujarat bank, where the trust had an account, to stop the payment.