Cybertheft using stolen biometric data: Mangaluru Police still looking for mastermind

Mangaluru: Police are still on the lookout for the prime suspect in the theft of the property registrants’ biometric and Aadhaar details from the Mangaluru Sub-registrar’s office.

City Police Commissioner Anupam Agarwal said that the main accused is at large and a search is underway.

It may be recalled that money was stolen from the bank accounts of several property registrants using the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AEPS) following at theft of biometric data from sub-registrar’s office here over several months.

Agarwal said that 60 persons have complained about theft of funds after registering the property in Mangaluru sub-registrar’s office and 10 cases have been registered.

So far three persons have been arrested in the case and have been remanded to judicial custody by court. Incriminating evidence including laptops, and printers have been seized from them.

Organised crime ring

The investigation has revealed that the thefts are connected to an organised crime ring. About 3 to 4 teams from Bihar are involved in the stealing of biometric data from government websites across several states. The mastermind stole biometric information from the Kaveri-2.0 software and passed it to other gangs. Gang members would then illegally transfer money from victims’ accounts using AEPS, Agarwal said.

The investigation has also revealed that the biometric data and documents have been stolen from websites of several other states. Anupam Agarwal said that letters have been sent to the police stations of various districts of the state of Karnataka as well as the police of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.