The Bengaluru cybercrime police lately arrested a suspect in Rajasthan who created pretend authorities e mail IDs and court docket orders to unfreeze two ICICI financial institution accounts and switch Rs 1.32 crore. The police have additionally arrested two extra individuals in New Delhi for the crime.
The case was investigated on the premise of a police criticism filed on March 3 by the supervisor of an ICICI financial institution department in Bengaluru. The probe revealed that Sagar Lakkere, 23, a faculty dropout who labored in a photograph studio within the Sirohi area of Rajasthan, devised the plan to unfreeze financial institution accounts and switch frozen funds to benami accounts.
Among the many two others arrested for the crime by the Bengaluru cybercrime police is a parking attendant in Delhi, Abhimanyu Kumar Pandey, 24, in whose identify Lakkere created an Axis Checking account to switch funds frozen in Bengaluru, and an Axis Financial institution government Neeraj Singh, 30, who facilitated creation of the checking account of Pandey for switch of funds by Lakkere.
The probe revealed that Sagar Lakkere, 23, devised the plan to unfreeze financial institution accounts and switch frozen funds to benami accounts.
“The primary accused got here up with the thought of the crime after his personal checking account linked to a betting app was frozen by a financial institution. Through the defreezing of his account, he understood the method concerned. He then studied betting apps and devised a scheme to challenge pretend court docket orders to banks to unfreeze accounts and switch funds to himself,” a police officer mentioned.
The probe has discovered that Lakkere created a pretend Karnataka authorities ID on the KSWAN web site and used it between September 19, 2024 and February 12, 2025, to ship a complete of 18 pretend court docket orders to the ICICI Financial institution’s nodal mail ID to unfreeze funds in several accounts of the financial institution and to switch them to the account created in Delhi within the identify of the parking attendant Pandey whom Lakkere had met casually.
After sending the pretend court docket orders, Lakkere would name an worker of the ICICI Financial institution from a cell phone and request him to launch the frozen cash. The ICICI Financial institution cross checked the cell quantity with the e-mail message despatched from the federal government ID and issued orders for unfreezing accounts on two events, the police mentioned.
The cybercrime police discovered through the probe that the funds transferred with the pretend defreezing orders had been touchdown in an Axis Checking account linked to an individual in Delhi. When the police reached Delhi, they discovered that the Axis Checking account was held by Pandey.
Story continues beneath this advert
Pandey instructed the police that he had opened the Axis Checking account with the help of a financial institution government as instructed by considered one of his associates who later deposited Rs 1.32 crore within the account.
When the 2 New Delhi-based accused had been interrogated, they allegedly revealed that Rs 38 lakh of the Rs 1.32 crore acquired within the Delhi Axis Checking account was transferred to varied financial institution accounts on the route of Lakkere. Additionally they indicated that they used Rs 31 lakh of stolen funds to reside a excessive life.
Lakkere was then tracked down in Rajasthan and detained by the police final week. The Axis Checking account in Delhi, which nonetheless contained Rs 63 lakh of stolen funds, has been frozen by the police after the arrests.
© The Indian Specific Pvt Ltd