Thane: In a shocking development, the Thane Police have said that payment gateway of Safexpay Technology Pvt Ltd (STPL) was allegedly hacked, revealing a massive scam of siphoning off Rs 18,180-crore, including some money transferred abroad, is now being probed, here on Monday.
The Shrinagar Police Station has lodged an FIR and probing the matter along with the Thane Police Cyber Cell, said top officials.
As per the investigations, the ongoing fraud came to light after a complaint that some persons had allegedly hacked into the 6-year-old STPL’s payment gateway, and the monies were then transferred to hundreds of bank accounts.
An amount of Rs 25-crore, which was siphoned off, found its way into the HDFC Bank account of a Thane-based company, Real Enterprises with five branches in the city and Navi Mumbai suburbs, said the investigators.
A probe into Real Enterprises revealed at least 260 accounts with various banks that were used for carrying out the financial frauds, said the officials.
A perusal of the bank statements of these 260 accounts pointed to an estimated misappropriation of a massive Rs 16,180-crore, a part of which has been transferred to foreign accounts.
Though the scam was reportedly going on since sometime, it came to light after a complaint was lodged in April when an amount of over Rs 25-crore was siphoned off illegally.
The probe after the complaint revealed that the Rs 25-crore scam was merely the tip of the iceberg and the total mega-fraud could be over Rs 16,180-crore that is being investigated now.
The Naupada Police last Friday lodged an FIR against some of the known accused Jitendra Pandey, Sanjay Singh, Amol Andhale alias Aman and Sameer Dighe alias Kedar under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act.
The matter is being investigated by teams of the Thane Police and its Cyber Cell, but no arrests have been made so far, though an accused Pandey is believed to be one of kingpins with a banking background of nearly 10 years.
Police suspect that there could be many more persons involved in the huge racket involving opening bank accounts with fake documents, floating five partnership firms with bogus papers intended to cheat the government.
(IANS)
