Gurgaon: A former sales officer of AU Small Finance Bank was arrested in Jaipur by Gurgaon police, making him 10th bank employee to be taken into custody in cybercrime cases this year.
Since Feb, ten employees of four different banks — Yes Bank (5), Kotak Mahindra (3), RBL Bank (1) and AU Small Finance Bank (1) — have been held in separate cases linked to cyber frauds.
Police said that Zaildar Brar (31), who worked with AU Small Finance Bank, gave access to an account to cyber fraudsters who used it for transactions worth Rs 4.5 crore in a year. Brar allegedly charged Rs 1 lakh for getting them the account. On Monday, the bank said it was “unaware” about the case until, and Brar was sacked in 2019.
“Zaildar Brar joined one of our branches in Jaipur on October 17, 2019. Later, he stopped reporting for work, so his services were terminated on Dec 30, 2019. He had no connection with AU SFB,” a spokesperson of the bank told TOI.
The case was registered on Jan 25 after a Manesar Municipal Corporation staffer filed a complaint, alleging that he was cheated of Rs 26 lakh.
The corporation staffer said he had clicked on an online advertisement on Snapchat for car rentals and filled in information about himself on a website. Some unknown users then added him to a Telegram group claiming to be linked to the car rental firm — Rino Car Hire Group. They offered him a part-time task-based job such as liking videos on social media and said he would get paid Rs 1.2 crore in six days if he accepted it.
The corporation staffer ended up losing Rs 26 lakh, he said in his complaint at Manesar police station. While investigating the case, police traced the money lost to a trading account with the AU Small Finance Bank. But the account holder — Akhil of Rajasthan — was lodged in Lalitpur jail in UP in another fraud case.
Investigators questioned Akhil and found that he had given his bank’s access to Brar (31), who was his friend and had worked with the bank’s branch in Jaipur. In return, Akhil took 2% commission from Brar. Cops tracked down Brar to the city and arrested him on April 6.
Brar told police that he gave Nitesh (38), an insurance agent from Rajasthan’s Chomu, the information to use Akhil’s account for Rs 1 lakh.
Nitesh would act as a middleman to get cyber fraudsters bank accounts for Rs 15,000, police said, after arresting him from Jaipur on April 7.
“The duo has been getting access to bank accounts from the people they know by lying to them that the accounts are being used for gaming portals and apps to receive money from clients. As they were offering 2% commission, people like Akhil had provided access to their accounts. Rs 4.5 crore was transferred through the bank account in the past year,” said ACP (cybercrime) Priyanshu Dewan.
The two suspects have been booked under IPC sections 419 (impersonation for cheating), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property).
