A 53-year-old Mumbai police man lost Rs 1.6 lakh after his smartphone, given for routine repairs, was allegedly hacked and used to siphon off his savings. The complainant discovered multiple unauthorised debits from his bank accounts on August 16, including transactions routed through digital wallets, along with some links auto-forwarded from his number.

The victim, Ketan (name changed), has served in the police force for decades. Trusting a Tardeo-based mobile repair shop with his mobile phone, which began to overheat, he handed over the phone to the shop owner.

In his statement, Ketan said that the technician in the shop swapped the battery as the previous battery, he claimed, was faulty. But the problem persisted with the new battery as well when Ketan took the phone back again. For advanced repairs, the phone was taken back, this time for a couple of days.  Trusting him, Ketan even shared his unlock password for the phone. Days later, the device was returned.

On August 15, when Ketan tried to check his bank account balance, his mobile banking app failed to open. He checked his Google Pay to see the balance and noticed Rs 3.7 lakh missing from his account. He noticed that transactions amounting from Rs 5000 to Rs 50,000 totalling R1.6 lakh were debited from his account, which was notified to him via SMS alerts from his bank. 

Looking at his bank account for the transaction details, it showed that one of the 12 transactions made landed in an account of a man named Monu Kumar Verma. While the victim said his total loss amounts to Rs 5.3 lakh, only 12 fraudulent transactions worth Rs 1.6 lakh could be traced with evidence and have been recorded in the FIR.

When he started checking his mobile phone properly, he noticed his number had been linked to multiple unknown mobiles, and suspicious links were auto-forwarded from his SMS inbox. The police said that this was a case of phone hacking and siphoning money from a bank account. The Tardeo police station has registered a case under sections 66(C) and 66(D) of the IT Act and 318(4) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita for cheating. Police suspect that the phone may have been compromised during repair, giving fraudsters access to his banking credentials.

A police official from the cyber cell said, “Citizens should be extra cautious while handing over their phones to anyone, even service centres. Never share unlock passwords, always remove SIM and memory cards, backup and reset devices if possible and keep a close watch on bank alerts. The basic thing every citizen should be doing is to enable two-factor authentication on banking apps and immediately contact the bank to block accounts if any suspicious deductions are noticed.”

Source