Cyber Criminals Diverting Online Customers’ Bonus!

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI: The police have been grappling with a first of its kind cyber crime – fraudulent diversion of the cash-back money (bonus) which a customer gets after purchasing goods online – to one’s own app.

Morigaon police arrested one Saiful Islam from Saharia Gaon under Moirabari police station on Friday. Another person, Rajib Alhom, has also been picked up. He is being grilled. The police, together with the CID, seized as many as 5,500 SIM cards, mainly of Vodafone and Idea, and twenty mobile sets from the house of Islam.

Talking to The Sentinel, Morigaon SP Swapnanil Deka said: “We’ve also picked up one Rajib Lahon, a Vodafone dealer of Nagoan. He’s being interrogated. There may be more such arrests.”

According to the police and the CID, Islam has been diverting the cash-back money of online customers purchasing goods through Flipkart, Amazon etc., to his own app by using fake SIM cards and OTPs (one-time passwords). “A customer purchasing goods worth over Rs 1,000 online gets around Rs 200-300 as cashback money that comes to their apps. Islam has been engaged in diverting that money to his own app for quite a long time, and the amount of cash diverted may be in lakhs,” a source said.

Sources in the CID say that this is first of its kind cyber crime they have faced so far. “It’s a challenge for us. There may be more arrest, and the actual modus operandi and the enormity of the crime can be ascertained only after the investigation is over,” a personnel of the investigating agency said.

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