UTI Bank: Phishing Fraud

The Economic Offences Wing, Crime Branch, Delhi Police, received
a complaint from the vice president, Operations, UTI Bank that many customers of
various UTI banks in Delhi, Vishakapatnam, Thane, Nasik, and Ahmedabad received
emails claiming to have originated from the bank. Recipients of fake mails were
told to update their bank account information on the pretext that their account
information was being updated. These emails included a hyperlink within the
email itself, and a click on the link took the recipients to a Web page, which
was identical to UTI's Web page. Some unsuspecting recipients responded to
these mails, and gave their login information and passwords. Later on, through
Internet banking, a large number of fraudulent transactions took place. These
transactions resulted in loss of over Rs 20 lakh for customers with bank
accounts in Delhi, Vishakapatnam, Thane, Nasik, and Ahmedabad.

An analysis on those phishing mails revealed that they had
originated from somewhere in Lagos, Nigeria. The UTI phishing site had lifted
the UTI logo as well as the Iconnect symbol from the original UTI site in order
to make the fake site look real. The fake site provided a 'click here'
option, which in turn took victims to a fake customer verification site based in
Austria. IP addresses of the fraudulent transactions indicated transactions had
been made from Nigeria, Atlanta and California.

Investigations

Upon a complaint of the vice president, UTI Bank, a case (FIR No 431/06 u.s
420/120-B IPC r/w 66 IT Act was) registered and taken up for investigation by a
special team. Investigations revealed that Sanjit Chowdhary, Account No
111010100023959 with UTI Bank, Noida, had received a disputed credit entry
totaling Rs 1.3 lakh through Internet banking from the account of Lakshmi
Narayan Sarkar of Kolkata, who has an account at UTI Bank, Salt Lake, Kolkota,
and from the account of Makaran H Pundalik, who has an account with the Standard
Chartered Bank, Delhi.

It was further revealed that the misappropriated funds had been
transferred in the account of accused Sanjit Chowdhary. With the defrauded
amount yet to be withdrawn, it was likely that the alleged person might visit
the bank for the same. The police team laid a trap at UTI Bank in Noida and the
accused Sanjit Chowdhary, who came to the branch to make enquiries regarding the
inactive status of his account, was arrested on December 7, 2006.

On being interrogated, the accused disclosed that he had
received money in his bank account consequent to phishing mails sent to various
customers of UTI Bank. Various transaction slips pertaining to the UTI Bank and
ICICI Bank were recovered from his possession. A scrutiny of these slips
revealed that Sanjit Chowdhary had withdrawn funds and deposited the same in
accounts of his other associates, who had accounts in UTI and ICICI Bank at
Mumbai and Trichy.

Till December 2006, a total of twenty complainants had
registered their complaints. All the six beneficiary accounts (UTI branches at
Saket, GK, Noida, Vikaspuri, Defence Colony and Lajpat Nagar) are in Delhi for
these twenty complainants. Further, ten complaints had been received by UTI
branches in Vishakapatnam, Ahmedabad, Nasik, and Thane, where the beneficiary
accounts are being maintained. An analysis of the accounts of the four arrested
Nigerian nationals revealed that financial transactions worth over Rs 1 crore
took place in an eight-month period.

Till December 2006, four Nigerian nationals and one Indian
national have been arrested. Investigations revealed that the scam was
multi-layered with pan-India and International spread.

Shipra Malhotra

shipram@cybermedia.co.in