RPF disrupts software used for cornering confirmed railway tickets

The Railway Protection Force on Tuesday claimed that it has disrupted the use of illegal software ''Real Mango'' that was used for cornering confirmed train reservations during the coronavirus pandemic and made 50 arrests in an investigation spanning different parts of the country.

In the course of the systematic unravelling of the working of the illegal software, it has been found that it bypasses captcha, synchronises bank OTP with the help of a mobile app and feeds it to the requisite form to book tickets automatically. It also auto-fills the passenger and payment details in the forms, the railways said in a statement.

The software logs in to the IRCTC website through multiple IRCTC Ids. The illegal software is sold through a five-tiered structure with the system admin receiving payment in bitcoins.

The RPF also intensified its drive against touts in view of the apprehension of increase in touting activity after the restart of the passenger services.

Operation of an illegal software called ''Rare Mango'' (whose name was later changed to ''Real Mango'') was revealed on August 9 during action against touts by the field units of RPF, the Railways said.

During the pandemic period, the RPF conducted various drives and arrested 994 touts and advance tickets worth Rs 87.70 crore have been blocked. It has also disrupted many illegal softwares like ANMS/ Red Mirchi/Black TS, TikTok, I-Ball, Red Bull, MAC, N-GET, Cycle, Star-V2 etc.

The RPF arrested 50 people including the system developer who was the kingpin and key managers involved in the operation of the illegal software.