Theft from accounts of property registrants in Mangaluru – Police arrest 3 from Bihar

Mangaluru police have nabbed 3 individuals from Bihar in connection with the cases of theft using AEPS (Aadhaar Enabled Payment System) from bank accounts of property registrants by using stolen biometric details.

The accused have been identified as Deepak Kumar Hembram (33) a resident of Nayatola Karnpur in Supaul district, Vivek Kumar Biswas (24), and Madan Kumar (23), both from Araria District of Bihar. They were nabbed from Purnia district, police said.

It may be recalled that 10 cases have been filed in the CEN police station in Mangaluru regarding theft from the bank accounts of individuals who had registered their properties in the 6-month period of 2023 at the Sub registrar’s office in Mangaluru.

Police said that the accused illegally accessed the biometric (fingerprint) and Aadhaar information from the Kaveri 2.0 website used for the registration of property in Karnataka and used them for making unauthorized transactions through the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AEPS).

Bank deposits worth Rs 3,60,242/- spread across ten bank accounts belonging to the accused have been confiscated. Their transactions have been suspended. Additionally, mobile phones in possession of the accused have been seized for further scrutiny, police added.

Furthermore, during the investigation, over 1000 registrations related to Karnataka state, as well as more than 300 PDF copies of letters from Andhra Pradesh and other states, were discovered in the possession of the accused, police added.

Further investigations are underway.