13 September,2011 06:58 AM IST | | Imran Gowhar
NGO avails electronic gateway facility from Indira Nagar Branch of ICICI bank allegedly to route Rs 13.3 crore from credit card holders' account to its own
The Cyber Crime Police managed to nab a 28-year-old software engineer, who designed a software to skim money off credit cards and transfer it into his NGO-employer's account.
The trust has been accused of withdrawing around Rs 13.3 crore by phishing from ICICI bank account holders.
Though the police took over an year to track down Selva Babu (28) and bring him to book, the accused managed to get the bail and was released within hours of arrest.
Babu who runs V Cube Tech, a software company in Chennai, had developed a website for the Selva Regina charitable trust, a city based NGO allegedly supporting orphanages and old age homes.
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The trust has seven members in all and was headed by Regina Seelan.
Deputy Superintendent of Police TV Prabhakar, who is heading the investigations said that Regina representing the trust, had approached the bank seeking an electronic gateway facility, which allows donors to make online donations.
The Indira Nagar branch of the ICICI bank obliged and extended the facility to the NGO on May 28, 2010, which was then uploaded by the organisation on their official website - www.src_trust.org.
The scam came to light when the bank officialsu00a0 received several complaints from account holders stating that their money was being drained out of their accounts.
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Following this, the vigilance wing of the bank conducted investigations and found that the money was being electronically transferred to the Regina Charitable trust.
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The bank further found 995 transactions from July 1, 2010 to 13 August 2010 amounting to around Rs 13.3 crore.
The bank summoned trust members seeking an explanation several times, but when no one turned up, a complaint was filed with the local police.
The local police later transferred the case to the Cyber Crime Police since it required specialised investigations.
Prabakar said that after tracking the transactions, the cyber sleuths zeroed in on Babu on September 5, after which he admitted to having developed the software.
The sleuths have confiscated several documents proving his involvement in the scam, including documents showing Rs 5 lakh he received from the trust to develop the software.
Though the Cyber Crime Police claim to have corroborative evidence to nail Babu, he managed to obtain bail making a mockery of the investigations.
The court, while granting him bail, imposed a condition that he would appear before the investigating authorities whenever required and also directed that he cannot leave the country without prior permission from the police.
When attempts were made to contact the bank officials, they were not available for comment.
