Out of Rs 94 crore, hackers divert `13.5 crore to Macau

Pune: Investigation into the Cosmos Bank in Pune revealed that the hackers had transferred Rs 13.5 crore to Macau. It may be noted that Macau is known for being the top gambling hub.

"There were two types of fraudulent transactions carried out: One where cloned debit cards were used to withdraw Rs 80.5 crore, and the other in which a SWIFT transfer of Rs 13.5 crore was made from the Pune-based bank to an account in a Hong Kong-based bank. On tracking the second transfer, it came to light that the money was then transferred to the account of an investment banking company from where it made its way to Macau," a senior police officer said.

The investigations also revealed that the hackers that were involved in the cyber attack had their own forums on the darknet.

"The way it works is that the fraudsters have their own forums on the darknet. They informed people that they would be carrying out an ATM cash-out attack. They would inform the members about the timing of the cash-out and provide the card details in exchange for a fee," the officer further explained.

Earlier this month, cybercriminals used cloned debit cards to steal Rs 94.4 crore from a Pune-based cooperative bank after breaching its servers, in the second such attack on an Indian bank this year.

Cosmos Cooperative Bank was caught unawares during the theft between August 11 and August 13 as the hackers took control of its system and self-approved nearly 15,000 false transactions.

A total of 450 cloned international Visa and several RuPay debit cards were used in 28 countries, including 2,800 transactions in India. It is suspected that the hackers have links with Hong Kong.

The money that was transferred is mostly from the inter-bank settlement accounts, said Gokhale. "Our internal audit is on to find out the final figure of the amount." The fraud came to light on Monday when the payment gateways approached the bank seeking the money that it had cleared based on

'approvals'.