Six held for availing loans in dead techies' names

Hyderabad: The Cyber Crime sleuths of Cyberabad arrested six persons for availing various types of loans from different banks and financial institutions in the name of dead IT professionals.

The accused are identified as Nimmagadda Phani Chowdary, Mandava Swaroop Nath Chowdary, Pedavalli Srinivasa Rao, Kandru Harish, Narne Venu Gopal and Ikkruthi Veera Shekhar Rao.

The accused would seek loans in the name of the dead IT professionals by submitting fake IDs, documents and also taking the advantage of the loopholes prevailing in the banking and telecom service system.

Police seized a car, 100 fake ID proofs, 6 mobile phones, 20 SIM cards from the possession of them. According to Cyberabad Police Commissioner V C Sajjanar, they received a complaint from the senior manager of HDFC Bank on January 2, stating that they came to know about the misuse of HDFC credit card to the tune of Rs 2.76 lakh held in the name of the deceased Palaparthi Raghuram of Infosys by some unknown persons by impersonation.

He requested for taking legal action. Based on the complainant police registered a case and took up investigation.

During the investigation it is was revealed that the accused Phani Chowdary and Swaroop Nath Chowdary hatched a plan to avail loans in the names of the dead people by impersonating in banks and in mobile stores by using fabricated IDs and other documents.

They later informed the same to the other accused and they agreed to be part of this plot. Both the accused targeted the IT employees who died accidentally, as their details are easily available on internet like Google, Facebook and social networking websites.

They collected the mobile numbers and duplicate SIM cards (deceased mobile number) by submitting fake IDs with the usage of photographs of others and collect the customer ID and bank account number by visiting respective banks by saying that they need account number to deposit the amount by using the contact number of the deceased.

Using the customer ID and mobile number, the accused login into net banking and click on "forgot password" option and get the password changed by using gmail and phone number and later they get to access the net banking through the changed password and raise requests for instant pre-approved loans and credit cards.

Later they would transfer the loan amount and balance amount from deceased accounts to fake bank accounts opened by them.

In total, the accused misappropriated an amount of Rs 53.95 lakh by impersonating as the dead IT professionals and availed instant loans, consumer durable loans, got credit cards in their names from six different banks.