<p>Bengaluru: Two Indians based in Dubai employed hackers from Hong Kong to break into a non-banking financial company (NBFC) and swindle Rs 49 crore, police officers said. </p><p>Officials from the cybercrime police station on Monday announced the arrests of Sanjay Patel, 43, from Udaipur, Rajasthan, and Ismail Rasheed Attar, 27, from Belagavi, Karnataka. </p><p>The men are believed to be part of a group that hacked into the servers of Whizdm Finance Private Limited in Bengaluru and carried out unauthorised fund transfers. The NBFC provides instant loans of up to Rs 5 lakh on its Moneyview app, investigations revealed. </p>.Bengaluru security deposit scam | Landlord vanishes without returning deposit to tenant.<p>Police had launched the investigation on August 9 based on a complaint filed by a senior manager at Whizdm Finance. </p><p>The FIR notes that a series of unauthorised and suspicious financial transfers were carried out from the company’s bank accounts in just 2.5 hours on the intervening night of August 6 and 7. </p><p>The company's internal investigations revealed that these transactions were not carried out from its official systems or registered IP addresses. They instead originated from foreign IP addresses, and approximately Rs 47 crore was illegally transferred from the company's accounts to other bank accounts. Further police investigations revealed an additional loss of Rs 2 crore. </p><p>Technical investigations, led by Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime-2) Raja Imam Kasim, showed that 1,782 transfers were made from the company’s bank accounts to 656 different bank accounts across India. </p><p>One SBI account that received Rs 27.39 lakh belonged to Patel, a high-school dropout working as a plumber in Udaipur. He was arrested on September 25. </p><p>Investigations further unearthed another Rs 5.5 crore transfer to a bank account in the name of 'Unknown Technologies Pvt Ltd, Hyderabad' and later routed to an ICICI Bank account belonging to another individual. Police found the transactions were conducted via an IP address belonging to Webyne Data Centre, which provides server hosting services. </p><p>On October 9, police arrested Attar, a digital marketer who offers online freelance services. </p><p>Further investigations revealed that the two Indians based in Dubai had contacted Attar via Telegram and rented five servers he had bought from Webyne. "Though the servers cost about Rs 1,500 each, the duo rented them for Rs 2,500 apiece. The five IP addresses used by hackers were traced back to these five rented servers," a police officer involved in the investigation told DH. </p><p>The Dubai-based Indians then hired hackers from Hong Kong, who used Webyne's rented servers to hack into Whizdm, bypass the firewall and make the unauthorised transfers to 656 bank accounts posing as instant loan seekers. Hong Kong and Lithuania-based IP addresses were used during the crime, according to police. </p><p>The Dubai-based Indians, as well as the hackers, are absconding, police said. </p><p>"We have recovered Rs 10 crore and are hopeful of recovering the rest," said Seemant Kumar Singh, Bengaluru Police Commissioner.</p>
<p>Bengaluru: Two Indians based in Dubai employed hackers from Hong Kong to break into a non-banking financial company (NBFC) and swindle Rs 49 crore, police officers said. </p><p>Officials from the cybercrime police station on Monday announced the arrests of Sanjay Patel, 43, from Udaipur, Rajasthan, and Ismail Rasheed Attar, 27, from Belagavi, Karnataka. </p><p>The men are believed to be part of a group that hacked into the servers of Whizdm Finance Private Limited in Bengaluru and carried out unauthorised fund transfers. The NBFC provides instant loans of up to Rs 5 lakh on its Moneyview app, investigations revealed. </p>.Bengaluru security deposit scam | Landlord vanishes without returning deposit to tenant.<p>Police had launched the investigation on August 9 based on a complaint filed by a senior manager at Whizdm Finance. </p><p>The FIR notes that a series of unauthorised and suspicious financial transfers were carried out from the company’s bank accounts in just 2.5 hours on the intervening night of August 6 and 7. </p><p>The company's internal investigations revealed that these transactions were not carried out from its official systems or registered IP addresses. They instead originated from foreign IP addresses, and approximately Rs 47 crore was illegally transferred from the company's accounts to other bank accounts. Further police investigations revealed an additional loss of Rs 2 crore. </p><p>Technical investigations, led by Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime-2) Raja Imam Kasim, showed that 1,782 transfers were made from the company’s bank accounts to 656 different bank accounts across India. </p><p>One SBI account that received Rs 27.39 lakh belonged to Patel, a high-school dropout working as a plumber in Udaipur. He was arrested on September 25. </p><p>Investigations further unearthed another Rs 5.5 crore transfer to a bank account in the name of 'Unknown Technologies Pvt Ltd, Hyderabad' and later routed to an ICICI Bank account belonging to another individual. Police found the transactions were conducted via an IP address belonging to Webyne Data Centre, which provides server hosting services. </p><p>On October 9, police arrested Attar, a digital marketer who offers online freelance services. </p><p>Further investigations revealed that the two Indians based in Dubai had contacted Attar via Telegram and rented five servers he had bought from Webyne. "Though the servers cost about Rs 1,500 each, the duo rented them for Rs 2,500 apiece. The five IP addresses used by hackers were traced back to these five rented servers," a police officer involved in the investigation told DH. </p><p>The Dubai-based Indians then hired hackers from Hong Kong, who used Webyne's rented servers to hack into Whizdm, bypass the firewall and make the unauthorised transfers to 656 bank accounts posing as instant loan seekers. Hong Kong and Lithuania-based IP addresses were used during the crime, according to police. </p><p>The Dubai-based Indians, as well as the hackers, are absconding, police said. </p><p>"We have recovered Rs 10 crore and are hopeful of recovering the rest," said Seemant Kumar Singh, Bengaluru Police Commissioner.</p>