Kolkata: One more duped in KYC fraud, cops to meet telecom officials

KOLKATA: Even after police arrested 29-year-old Adityabh Agarwal from Howrah, who acted as the nodal agent who helped gangs siphon off money from people’s bank accounts by tricking them into parting with their bank details on the pretext of updating their e-wallet KYCs, the racket seemed to thrive in the city. A senior citizen, Kaberi Ganguly, of Keshab Chandra Sen Street, received a call on March 2, when she was told to update her e-wallet KYC.As she was duped into divulging her debit card details, Rs 1.6 lakh was withdrawn from her account, police said.
Investigators have convened a meeting with telecom operators to seek their help. After siphoning off money from their targets, the gangs would disperse the funds at the earliest so that the money trail could not be tracked, police said. “They used an app to send requests to citizens to recharge their mobiles. The money they took for recharge were not paid to telecom companies. The accused sent the money to their own accounts and the money they had stolen were pushed into telecom firms,” said a senior investigator.
The officer said to track the stolen money, they would take telecom operators’ help. “We are creating a mechanism in which, we will get an alert when bulk requests are sent,” said an officer, adding stolen money was mostly funding the recharge industry.