Mumbai: Bank server hacked, Rs 1.42cr siphoned off

The Bank of Maharashtra lodged a complaint against 22 residents of Bhayander on Friday, accusing them of hacking its central server in Mumbai and allegedly exploiting a bug in the Centre’s United Payments Interface (UPI) app to siphon off Rs 1.42 crore. Between December 26, 2016, and January 18, 2017, the accused allegedly made 142 “request money” transactions using the UPI, the police said. The fraud came to light in January after which the bank froze the accounts in which the money had been deposited and approached the police when the account holders failed to respond to notices ordering them to return the money. The Navghar police station has booked Bhayander residents Jaswant Damania, his sons Raj and Pritesh, Prateek Poojary and Bharat Gawale, an Aurangabad resident identified only as Deepak, apart from 16 others, for cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy and identity theft. 

According to the police, Bharat Gawale and Deepak allegedly hacked the bank’s central server in south Mumbai last year. “All the accused had accounts in the bank and downloaded the UPI app and linked their bank accounts to it,” said inspector S. V. Shetye, of Navghar police station.