CID busts cyber criminal involved in IT refund scam worth crores

A 32-year-old cyber criminal, accused of participating in a multi-crore income tax refund scam, was recently apprehended by the Cyber Crime Division of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

The arrested individual has been identified as Dilip Rajegowda, a resident in close proximity to the Police Training School in Dharwad.

CID officers have uncovered evidence indicating that Rajegowda embezzled Rs 3.6 crore. He has been taken into police custody for further investigation.

Rajegowda is involved in multiple cases registered against him across various police stations in Bengaluru and the state. Police have also identified cases against him in Maharashtra, Goa, and Telangana.

Recently, two cases were filed against Rajegowda at the cyber crime police station.

Modus operandi

According to the police, Rajegowda exploited government websites such as the income tax portal and illicitly utilised sensitive information to generate illicit gains. He carried out large-scale embezzlement related to income tax refunds by impersonating the bank accounts of legitimate taxpayers.

One of the victims had an amount of Rs 1,41,84,360 siphoned off by Rajegowda, while another victim, identified as R S Srinivasan, a 76-year-old GPA holder for his brother R S Suryanarayana Setty, lost Rs 93 lakh. Both victims reported that unknown individuals gained unauthorised access to their PAN accounts and manipulated their IT returns to fraudulently obtain refunds.

Rajegowda employed forged and falsified KYC documents to open bank accounts in the victims' names. In another instance, he successfully manipulated IT returns, resulting in a refund of Rs 1,41,84,360 being credited to the fraudulent account he had opened in a bank.

CID officials disclosed that Rajegowda has already misused various individuals' information to embezzle Rs 3.6 crore. He has also been involved in several cases of vehicle loan fraud, having obtained money from Bajaj Finance through deception.

The income tax authorities have been notified of the vulnerabilities in their systems and have been urged to address them. Similarly, the accused individual misused the Kaveri online portal, which handles property registrations for the state government.

Rajegowda admitted to the police that he used to pilfer data from the sub-registrar's office. He has been involved in cyber fraud for the past five years, and the police suspect his involvement in 15 cases. He had previously been arrested by the Byadarahalli police in 2020, followed by subsequent arrests by Jnanabharathi and other police departments.