Cyber Police Nabs Five Of The Mira Road Gang

The Cyberabad Cyber Crime Police today arrested five members of the infamous Gang of Mira Road for committing a series of SIM card swap frauds.

The five, Chandrakant Siddhanth Kamble, Zameer Ahmed Munir Sayyed, Adil Hassan Ali Sayyed, Junaid Ahmed Shaik and Ashwin Narayana Sharegar, were arrested for siphoning off money from the accounts of scores of people across the country.

They are all residents of Mumbai's Mira Road.

In a statement, the Cyberabad Commissioner of Police V C Sajjanar said that had the arrested members had adopted the technique of SIM swapping to get access to the net banking details of their targets.

"The accused have been using SIM swaps to siphon off the funds from the accounts of their targets since 2011. Investigations have revealed that the kingpin of the fraud ring is a Nigerian named James operating from abroad. He hacks the net banking credentials of his targets through phishing mails. He then hires blockers (who switch the new replaced SIM cards for blocked SIM cards) from West Bengal and Maharashtra and collect the replaced SIM cards of mobile numbers registered with bank accounts of his targets. Using the OTPs received on the mobile number, the gang transfers funds to the bank accounts provided of the blockers. James later collects the stolen amount through bitcoins or hawala," he said.

"The matter was first brought to our notice when a victim of the fraudsters approached us for help in June last year. In his complaint, he stated that on June 21, he had bought a new SIM card. He said that he soon found that the newly activated SIM could only be used to make calls, and not to receive any incoming calls. Following this, he contacted the JIO customer care services to complain about the issue. While the issue got resolved, when the complainant later tried to log in to his Kotak Mahindra internet banking account using his mobile, he realised that some unknown persons had changed his internet banking login credentials. He then changed his password using his debit card details. But when the victim tried to make a transaction he realised the balance amount in his account was zero. When he inquired into the issue the next day, he found that somebody had made three immediate payment service transactions worth Rs 4,25,000 from his account by swapping his SIM card without his knowledge," the CP added.

Based on this complaint, the police then registered a case at the Cyber Crime police station, and launched an investigation to apprehend the miscreants.

While they were still looking for the fraudsters, the police received another similar complaint on October 29.

The second complainant had lost Rs 6,75,000 over two transactions from his Bank of India account.

The police are still looking for another gang member named Shoaib Sheikh who is still absconding.