Pune: Cops trace UPI fraud racket links to West Bengal

PUNE: A preliminary probe by the cybercrime police has revealed that the suspects behind the latest online fraud misusing UPI app on cellphones are operating their racket from Kolkata and its adjoining areas in West Bengal.

“The numbers from which the encrypted link was sent to the victims for siphoning off their mone, are found to be from Kolkata and its surrounding areas,” cybercrime inspector Jayram Paygude told TOI on Wednesday.
“We are now verifying the money trail to establish how funds from the UPI app on the cellphones of the victims were transferred and to which UPI apps and bank accounts were linked to the apps,” Paygude said. The identification of the bank accounts linked to the UPI apps of the suspects would help the police to trace the culprits, he added.
The investigators, however, pointed out that the process was expected to take some time.
Meanwhile, the number of complaints related to the fraud received by the cybercrime police since February 15 has gone up to 80. On Wednesday, the police received 16 complaints.
“The quantum of the complaints rose suddenly from Febraury 15, when we received 11 plaints in a day, followed by 13 on February 16, 17 on Monday and 22 complaints on Tuesday. Since January 1, we were getting on an average a complaint per day. We expect that more people will approach us in next couple of days,” Paygude said.
“We will get the details of the phone number. We suspect the culprits might be operating their UPI app on the same device on which the money was transferred,” he added.
The police said all the complainants had received a common text message, stating ‘Dear Pytm customer, your Pytm KYC has been suspended. Call Pytm office PH 98XXXXX998. Your account will be block within 24 hrs. Thank you. Pytm team.” The text message also included an encrypted link.
Paygude said the UPI app company had not sent these messages to the customers. “People thought that the link was shared in the text message to update the KYC (Know Your Customer) formalities and click on it,” he said.
According to police, cybercrime fraudsters create mirror image of the cellphones on which the software gets downloaded after the victim clicks on the link. “In such cases, the victims usually do not share their credentials in the text message or make a call on the number provided in the message. But due to the mirror image of the cell phone and manage to siphon off the money from the customers’ account by gaining access to the device,” said Paygude.