Crooks hack payment gateway company, siphon off Rs 16,180 cr

A group of persons allegedly hacked into a payment gateway service provider company's account and siphoned off funds worth over Rs 16,180 crore from different bank accounts over a period of time, the Thane police said.

The fraud was taking place since long and came to light following a complaint lodged with Srinagar police station in Maharashtra's Thane city of hacking of the payment gateway account of the company in Thane in April 2023 and Rs 25 crore being siphoned off, an official from Naupada police station said.

When the police conducted a probe into it, a mega fraud worth over Rs 16,180 crore came to light, the official said quoting the FIR.

Following a complaint by a Thane crime branch official, the Naupada police in Thane on Friday registered the FIR against Sanjay Singh, Amol Andale @ Aman, Kedar @ Sameer Dighe, Jitendra Pandey and another unidentified person under Indian Penal Code sections 420 (cheating), 409 (criminal breach of trust), 467, 468 (forgery), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (common intention) and provisions of the Information Technology Act.

No arrest has been made so far, the police said.

As per the FIR, accused Jitendra Pandey earlier worked for 8 to 10 years with banks as relationship and sales manager.

The police suspect there may be many players in this mega racket, which has been going on since long, and may have pan India ramifications affecting several companies and individuals, the official said.

The crime is suspected to be spread over thousands of bank accounts and the money transferred into several other accounts, as per the FIR.

The police probe team has recovered several forged documents from the accused, it said.

An investigation was underway into the case, the police added.