Ahmedabad : A 29-year-old employee of a mobile phone shop in Ranip lost Rs 9.5 lakh after cyberfraudsters allegedly gained access to his smartphone through a malicious APK file disguised as a chat application.
In a complaint lodged with the city cybercrime police on Monday, the victim stated that he later found that an Aadhaar one-time password (OTP) had been sent to his registered mobile number on Oct 31. Police have launched an investigation into the cyberfraud.
Police said the money was allegedly transferred through multiple transactions via the PayU payment gateway to different bank accounts. The complainant told investigators that he had not authorised any of the transactions. The message had subsequently been deleted from his phone. During an examination of the device by a technical officer at the cybercrime police station, investigators found a file named ‘love chat.apk‘ on the smartphone. The complainant suspects that fraudsters sent the file while posing under a false identity and used it to gain access to his phone and banking credentials.
The fraud came to light on Nov 1 when the victim attempted to access the mobile banking application of IDFC First Bank to check his account balance but was unable to log in. After resetting his password and accessing the account, he discovered that Rs 9,48,493 had been transferred without his knowledge or consent.