The Delhi Police has busted a gang of digital shoplifters who had developed an expertise in digitally emptying promotional e-vouchers by exploiting security vulnerabilities of famous e-commerce websites.
The arrested accused, who have duped a website of Rs92 lakh — Sunny Nehra (23), Azad Chaudhary (19) Prakhar Agarwal (19) and Tejveer Sheroran(18) — are Btech and BCA students.
Police said they received a complaint from Voucha Gram India at Hauz Khas police station alleging that its website was hacked and vouchers around Rs1 crore were digitally stolen through data tampering of payment gateway ‘PayU’, on December 30. Based on which, a case of cheating and relevant provisions of IT Act was registered.
A special team, including ACP Rajender Pathania and SHO Hauz Khas Sanjay Sharma, was formed to crack the complex cyber offence that went through voluminous data procured from various online shopping portals and loss was pegged at Rs92 lakh.
“‘During the investigation, the team went through relevant IP addresses, e-mails and phone numbers, and managed to trace prime accused, a B.Tech dropout Sunny Nehra,” said Ishwar Singh, Deputy Commissioner of Police (South).
All the four accused, including Nehra, had developed online associations with hackers in the country and abroad and were involved in hacking for money by breaking weakly encrypted e-commerce portals, said police on Wednesday.
Police said Nehra had learnt from one of his hacker friend that PayU, a leading payment gateway, was suffering from vulnerability and could be tested for data tampering. They managed to hack the online systems including the payment gateway and indulged in manipulating cash backs by enhancing their value, using same gift card again and again, placing online orders without any actual payment and making small payments.
The digital money siphoned off by them was used on living a luxurious life and buying sophisticated proxy servers, virtual private networks, high end laptops used by them. The e-vouchers digitally shoplifted by the accused were spent also in five star hotels, air tickets, and renting expensive cars to go to parties and hotels with their girl friends, said the DCP.
Police have recovered a laptop used for high-level programming, with 256 GB RAM and capable of supporting hacking software, and latest I-phones and pads. Police said they are analysing data and logs of recovered equipment to detect and establish other cyber crimes and digital shoplifting committed by the gang.