Payment gateway company account hacked! Cybercriminals siphon off whopping Rs. 16,180 cr

In one of the worst cyber attack cases, it has been revealed that cybercriminals hacked into a payment gateway account and made off with as much as Rs. 16,800 crore! Thane Police have registered an FIR, which states that a group of persons allegedly hacked into a payment gateway service provider company's account and siphoned off the funds from different bank accounts. What is even more shocking is that these cybercriminals managed to do this over a period of time without anyone actually finding out.

The fraud was taking place since long and came to light following a complaint lodged with Srinagar police station in Maharashtra's Thane city, PTI reported. The complaint alleged hacking of the payment gateway account of the company here in April, 2023 and Rs. 25 crore being siphoned off. This was revealed by an official from Naupada police station.

However, that sum was barely the tip of the iceberg because when the police actually conducted a probe, a mega fraud worth over Rs. 16,180 crore came to light. All of this is part of the FIR registered by the police.

Following a complaint by a Thane crime branch official, the Naupada police here on Friday registered the FIR against Sanjay Singh, Amol Andale, Sameer Dighe, Jitendra Pandey and another unidentified person under Indian Penal Code sections 420 (cheating), 409 (criminal breach of trust), 467, 468 (forgery), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (common intention) and provisions of the Information Technology Act.

However, even though the FIR has been registered, the police are yet to make any arrests.

As per the FIR, accused Jitendra Pandey earlier worked for 8 to 10 years with banks as relationship and sales manager.

The police suspect there may be many players in this mega racket, which has been going on since long. The scam may also not be restricted to just one company, or one region, and in fact, the police suspect that it may have pan-India ramifications affecting several companies and individuals and is spread across thousands of bank accounts.

The probe is making progress as investigators have recovered several forged documents, the FIR stated.