A chemical engineer was arrested Tuesday for allegedly stealing from the bank accounts of at least 10 people and using the money to fund his online gambling activities. The accused has been identified as Kiran Chandrakant Devkar (24), a resident of Koregaon Bhim in Shirur taluka. Police said that his modus operandi was as follows: He would search for people who have linked their Facebook accounts to their cellphone numbers, and then he would hack into the accounts to steal their personal information — he used to open these accounts by typing the cellphone number as the password. If the account opened, he would change the user name and password of the account. He would then proceed to hack and change the user name and password of the email addresses linked to these accounts. Using the email, he would gain access to the bank accounts linked to the email and he would then transfer money from the banks in online transactions to purchase ‘coins’ to play ‘Teen Patti’, an online gambling game. Devkar was arrested following a probe into a complaint lodged by one Sachin Sushil Vinchvekar, resident of Shubhlakshmi apartments in Bharati Vidyapeeth. Vinchvekar filed a complaint with the cyber crime cell on September 1, 2016, against unidentified persons who hacked into his Facebook account on August 25. Police said the Devkar allegedly changed the password of Vinchvekar’s Facebook account and on August 26, an amount of Rs 13,500 was transferred in an online transaction from his HDFC bank account. A team led by sub-inspector Pravin Swami discovered Devkar’s alleged role in this crime and probe revealed his involvement in ten such crimes. Police Inspector Sunil Pawar of cyber crime cell that Devkar is a chemical engineer but is unemployed and was found of playing ‘Teen Patti’. Police said that he allegedly committed the crime as he did not have money to play it. Based on Vinchvekar’s complaint, an offence was registered at the Bharati Vidyapeeth police station under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act. Deputy Commissioner of Police (Cyber Cell) Deepak Sakore has appealed people to avoid keeping their mobile numbers, date of birth and similar information as their passwords as they can be easily hacked.
