SIM-card swap suspected in unauthorised transfer of ₹31 lakh from a Bengaluru firm

by Tushar Kaushik
Bengaluru: The business account of a small-scale industry in Peenya, that manufactures heat exchangers, was robbed of Rs 31 lakh overnight, in what is likely to be a case of SIM-card cloning.

The amount stolen is among the highest in cyber-crime cases registered in the City.

Kusha Shetty (73), Director of Eskay Heat Transfers, Peenya, said the amount was stolen via 10 transactions carried out between Sunday (January 13) night and Monday morning. Not a single SMS with any OTP was received by the SIM card originally linked to the account. Shetty lodged a complaint with the cyber crime police on Tuesday.

According to Shetty, the phone with the linked SIM card was in possession of an employee of the unit, who had gone to Shivamogga on Saturday. “When the card was deactivated on Saturday night, the employee thought it was due to network issues, especially as he had travelled through rural areas, and did not take any action,” Shetty said. The employee called the Airtel helpline regarding his SIM, and was asked if he had requested for a duplicate SIM. However, he did not suspect anything on the day.

The next morning, when other employees of the unit reached office and checked the account statement, the theft was discovered. A statement from Syndicate Bank, where the account exists, showed that 10 transactions had been carried out — five each from Surat and Lucknow. About half the transactions were done on Sunday night, totalling an amount of about Rs 15 lakh, and the rest on Monday morning, without the phone having received any OTP messages. “We are a small-scale industry so it is a huge sum for us,” said Shetty, who is checking if he can claim any reimbursement from either the bank or from Airtel.

What could help Shetty is the fact that the verdict in a similar case was recently delivered in favour of the victim by the city’s Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission. Ramesh Kumar, a businessman, had lost Rs 9.6 lakh in September, 2015.