JOIN USAbdul Khair Khan, 31, Pratik D Maurya, 24, Mohammed Khafil Syed, 32, Durgesh Rajput Tiwari, 21, all from Mumbai and Saleem Khan, 36, of Hyderabad are the arrested.
Phishing is a technique which is deployed to steal confidential financial information like bank account numbers, net banking passwords, credit card numbers, personal identity details etc.
The police said Abhishek Malaviya, Deba Prasad Chakravorthy and Narayan Kannan lost Rs one lakh each, while Priya Rani and Gurudev lost Rs 3.02 lakh and Rs 75,000 respectively due to phishing.
The police took up the investigation based on the complaints by the victims, who held accounts in different banks in the City. During the investigation it was revealed that the account holders had responded to phishing mails.
Subsequently, they were not able to access their accounts as the passwords, contact phone numbers and other details had been changed. The fraudsters would change the details, so that the actual account holders were not intimated by the bank about fraudulent transactions.
Later the fraudsters used to transfer the amount available in these accounts to several beneficiary accounts in Mumbai and other places. The phishing mails have originated from Nigeria and other foreign countries, added the police.
BTC employees robbed
Four men allegedly accosted three Bangalore Turf Club (BTC) employees in Sheshadripuram police limits on Thursday evening and robbed them of Rs 4.39 lakh.
According to the police, Sathyaprasad and Shanmugam are employed with BTC head office which has eight branches in different parts of the City. Shivakumar was hired as taxi driver for a BTC car.
Everyday, Sathyaprasad and Shanmugam visited branch offices, collected money and returned to the head office.
On Thursday evening, the two collected Rs 4.39 lakh from the branch office at Vinayaka Circle at Vyalikaval and kept the money inside a bag on the back seat of the car.
The suspects followed them in a car and accosted them on Subramanya Swamy Temple Road around 6.30 pm. They broke open the windowpanes of the car, lifted the bag and fled, the police added.
The suspects have been identified to be in the age group of 30-35 years. A complaint has been lodged with the Sheshadripuram police.
Woman ends life
Depressed after her husband died in a road accident, a 31-year-old woman hanged herself at her make-shift shop in Kadugodi on Wednesday.
The victim, Pongudi, a native of Tamil Nadu, was in depression after her husband died eight months ago in an accident.
She was staying with her brother Murugan and her three children at Immadihalli near Whitefield. On Wednesday, she stayed back at the shop and hanged herself.