An 18-year-old hacker was arrested by sleuths on Tuesday and accused of duping online shoppers of lakhs of rupees. A native of Champaran district in Bihar Mohatirullah landed in police net after he duped a Gomtinagar resident Anuj Chowdhary.
According to police, the teenager used to send phishing email links that directed victims to payment gateways compromising their account details. The boy is believed to have duped more than 20 persons, said DineshYadav, circle officer of Hazratganj area and nodal officer of cyber crime unit that cracked the case.A resident of VishwasKhand, Chowdhary bought an Apple iPhone 5 from the accused for Rs 30,000 through OLX, an online classifieds website on July 20. He then sent friend request to Chowdhary on Facebook and while chatting offered several other lucrative deals.Lured by brilliant offers Chowdhary decided to purchase more stuff from the accused. The boy then forwarded the email containing phishing link to Chowdhary. He asked Chowdhary only to pay up registration fee of Rs 100 and make final payment on delivery of purchased items. After agreeing to a transaction valuing Rs 100, Chowdhary was taken aback when instead of confirmation an error message popped up on the fake link.
He then asked his friend to make a payment of Rs 100 to bag the ‘limited period’ deal. His friend too got the same error message on visiting the link. Within a few minutes Chowdhary and his friend got a message from their banks that showed transactions of Rs 1,25,000 and Rs 25,000 respectively. Cyber cell was informed and subsequently they cracked the case with the help of electronic surveillance. Mohatirullah used to stay at a guest house opposite SGPGI. “Mother of the accused is undergoing treatment at the hospital,” added Yadav. Police recovered recently purchased gadgets worth Rs 70,000 from the possession of the accused and found out that he had been duping gullible persons since January.
