Kolkata: Kolkata Police is probing a cyber fraud case, in which scammers allegedly used the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, as a lure to trick a south Kolkata resident into installing a malicious android application package (APK), leading to an unauthorised debit of more than Rs 5.3 lakh from his bank account.Investigators suspect the fraud is part of a wider pattern, in which criminals impersonate govt staff, seek OTPs and circulate files labelled ‘SIR.apk’ to steal personal and financial data.
According to the complaint, the victim, a resident of Behala, received a message from an unknown mobile number, containing a file ending in “.apk” that claimed to provide details related to SIR. After he clicked the file by mistake and it got installed on his smartphone, multiple unauthorised transactions were carried out from his bank account over the last weekend.Police said the case was registered against unknown persons on allegations of criminal conspiracy and cheating, with the fraud being allegedly executed by installing malicious software on the complainant’s phone to gain access to banking credentials and facilitate debits in several tranches. The victim reported that he informed his bank on Monday, requesting that the account be frozen and associated cards and UPI access be blocked. He also filed a preliminary report through the national cybercrime helpline and provided police with supporting documents..Police said technical analysis is underway to trace the origin of the message, examine the malware’s behaviour and identify beneficiary accounts linked to the transfers.
