Bank staff colluded with cyber fraudsters: Police

July 11: Officers at the police cyber crime cell were surprised when 10 people recently registered cases pertaining to an online air ticket booking fraud one after the other. When they discovered a common thread, the cops realised that they had an elaborate fraud on their hands. “About 10 complaints came in over the past three weeks and all the cases were similar,” said a senior police officer. “The fraudsters cheated these people of around Rs 20 lakh.”

The crooks’ modus operandi was to steal data from credit cards of shoppers at a textile showroom in Purasawalkam and use it to book air tickets online. “One of the gang members is a travel agent and the gang would book tickets for legitimate passengers. The cardholders and the passengers were never aware of the fraud until it was too late.”

When the cardholders realised that cash was disappearing from their accounts, they approached the police. Investigating officers said the culprits used the three-digit CVV (card verification value) code from the credit cards to access the accounts of the card holders online.

“The CVV code alone is not enough,” the officer pointed out. “One has to know the PIN of the account they are hacking into or the personal question used as a substitute for the PIN. The fraudsters had access to both which cannot be possible without the help of bank staff. We have reasons
to believe that bank employees connived with the culprits.”

The police has arrested one person in connection with the case and is searching for the mastermind of the racket.