2 UP Government Employees Among 5 Arrested For Cheating Bank Of ₹ 146 Crore

Lucknow: 

Five people, including two Uttar Pradesh government employees, were arrested for cheating a cooperative bank of ₹ 146 crore here, police said on Tuesday.

The group had committed the fraud by obtaining the user identification and password of the Manager and Cashier of the Uttar Pradesh Cooperative Bank, Lucknow after hacking its server, they said.

Fatehpur resident Ram Raj, section officer in the Uttar Pradesh Home Department, Karamveer Singh of Etah, who was posted as Assistant Manager at Cooperative Bank, Sitapur, Dhruv Kumar Srivastava of Shahjahanpur, Akash Kumar of Kanpur, and Bhupendra Singh of Aurangabad in Bihar were arrested by the Special Task Force (STF) of Uttar Pradesh Police from Baans Mandi near polytechnic crossing here on Monday night.

The STF seized a bank ID card, 25 sets of Aadhaar cards and signed blank cheques, and seven ATM cards among other things from their possession.

Ajay Kumar Tripathi, Assistant General Manager at the Uttar Pradesh Cooperative Bank headquarters, lodged an FIR on October 16 at the Cyber Crime Police Station alleging that ₹ 146 crore were transferred through RTGS from seven accounts of district cooperative banks opened in an unauthorised manner.

During investigations, it was found that the server of Cooperative Bank in Hazratganj, Lucknow was hacked, and the money transferred to different accounts in ICICI and HDFC banks, the release said.

Mr Srivastava told police that he had met a hacker through Mr Kumar, who told them that he could hack the server of banks and remotely transfer money. Through Bhupendra Singh, they then had a meeting with Karmaveer Singh. With the help of Ram Raj, they succeeded in transferring the amount, the release said.