Maharashtra: Three more held for hacking into payment gateway service provider’s system

Thane, Oct 27 (PTI) The police in Maharashtra’s Thane city have taken into custody three more persons over a financial crime that involved breaching the system of a payment gateway service provider and siphoning off Rs 25 crore, bringing the total number of arrests in the case to seven, an official said on Friday.

The three have been identified as Kedar Dighe(41), Sandeep Nakashe (38), and Ram Bohra (47). They were arrested late on Thursday night, said Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) Dr Punjabrao Ugale.

The fraud came to light after a complaint was lodged in the city’s Srinagar police station in April 2023, alleging that the system of a payment service provider was hacked into leading to the siphoning off of Rs 25 crore.

During the probe, the cyber cell team came across suspicious transactions of more than Rs 16,180 crore, officials had said earlier.

The Naupada police in the city on October 6 registered a case against five persons under sections 420 (cheating), 409 (criminal breach of trust), 467, 468 (forgery), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (common intention) and provisions of the Information Technology Act.

As per the FIR, one of the accused, named Jitendra Pandey, earlier worked for 8 to 10 years with banks as a relationship and sales manager.

The accused in the case had set up many fake partnership firms to carry out dubious transactions. Of those arrested, some are associated with these fake companies, an official said. PTI COR NR