Mastermind who hacked system of foreign bank, transferred Rs 5.43 cr, nabbed from Delhi

Police said the bank’s senior vice-president Dev Narayan lodged a complaint with the cyber police station in August saying there were wrongful transactions from their bank account holders. According to the complaint, Rs 5.43 crore was transferred from the accounts of three account holders to accounts of other people

A foreign national, the mastermind of a cyber fraud and hacking gang, was arrested from Delhi by the South Mumbai Cyber Police. The accused allegedly hacked the banking system of Bank of Bahrain and Kuwait, fraudulently transferring Rs 5.43 crore from the accounts of three clients to 78 other bank accounts in different states, and rerouted them to his account. 

Police said the bank’s senior vice-president Dev Narayan lodged a complaint with the cyber police station in August saying there were wrongful transactions from their bank account holders. According to the complaint, R5.43 crore was transferred from the accounts of three account holders to accounts of other people.

Acting on the complaint, the police managed to freeze R86 lakh while the rest was withdrawn immediately by the accused and his gang.

A police officer said that upon checking details of beneficiary bank accounts, they found that the money was deposited in the accounts of people in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Assam. 

Of the total amount, Rs 6.12 lakh was sent to the account of a woman from Assam. During interrogation, the woman said she met the accused on social media who said he wanted to open a clinic in Delhi. He said he needed to open a bank account to get the money but could not do the same as he was new to the country. The woman then opened a bank account using a new phone number and handed over the SIM to the accused. 

The police identified the ATM which was used to withdraw the money and found a clip of the accused from the CCTV footage. They then identified the foreign national as Michael Chibuzi Okonko, 29, and arrested him.

Rs 5.43cr
Amount fraudulently transferred by the accused

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