The city police on Saturday detected a major cyber crime and arrested five persons, including two BSNl employees, in this connection. The three other three accused persons are natives of West Bengal and were brought here on transit remand after they were apprehended by the Cuttack police last week.
City DCP Sanjiv Arora said the accused persons by hacking the bank account number of one Shalini Das of Markat Nagar in the city obtained her internet banking username and password. "Subsequently, using fake documents in the name of Shalini's father Sanjiv Das, the culprits managed to get a duplicate SIM card of Shalini's mobile number with the help of two BSNl employees of the neighbouring Salepur circle," Arora said.
Using Shalini's banking details, including the cloned SIM card, the culprits managed to transfer more than Rs 25 lakh from her bank account to five other bogus bank accounts for more than 70 times within three days between November 26 and 28 last year. Sanjiv Das brought these fraudulent transactions in his daughter's bank account to the notice of the police when Shalini's phone number was blocked.
Investigating into the case, the police arrested Akhilesh Pandey, Satish Yadav and Arun Mishra from West Bengal. In this connection, the police also arrested the BSNl employees Dhruba Charan Khatei and Krutibas Kandi from Salepur.