Bengaluru (Karnataka): The Bengaluru police has apprehended four persons for allegedly stealing money by misusing Aadhaar card numbers and fingerprint data.
The accused Rehman, Abuzar, Arif, and Nasir Ahamed are all natives of Bihar. They stole money from accounts by operating the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS), a senior police official said.
According to police, four separate cases have been registered at the CEN police station of the North-East Division here. "Not just in Bengaluru, they also stole money from people's accounts in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and other states as well," added police.
"First, they planned and collected Aadhar card numbers and fingerprint data from the Karnataka Government’s revenue department website and then misused this data to withdraw huge amounts of money from bank accounts using the AePS method," police said.
Following the discovery of the fraud, the Bengaluru police wrote to the Revenue Department requesting that it make sure that the public could not access important data.
Police said that the accused acknowledged that they had sold the information they had gathered from official websites to third parties. It is understood that numerous police stations received reports of over 120 cases of identical offences.
A Special Investigation Team (SIT) led by Deputy Commissioner of Police (Northeast) Laxmi Prasad is probing the case. "In the wake of the Revenue Department's letter to prevent more AEPS cases from being registered, important documents have now been kept confidential, and as a result, the number of cases has reduced significantly," Laxmi Prasad told ETV Bharat.
Police said bank account holders making remittances or withdrawals through the AEPS system should not share their Aadhaar card numbers and other important information with anyone.
"Cyber thieves who collect fingerprints through biometrics will steal and exploit data through government websites. Hence, the confidentiality of PINs and passwords should be maintained. The public should also not click on unnecessary links to update their mobile or computer antivirus software," police said.
Read more:
