In a major breakthrough, the East Division Cyber Crime Police have arrested four individuals, including Vaibhav Pitadia, a branch manager at Axis Bank, for their involvement in an online fraud racket that led to a loss of Rs12.5 crore. The fraud was perpetrated through unauthorized access to the website of a payment gateway company, CRED.
The investigation, which was launched after a complaint by CRED, revealed that the accused accessed the company’s corporate nodal account at the Axis Bank branch in Indiranagar, Bangalore, and illegally withdrew Rs12.5 crore over the span of two days. The fraudsters gained access to CRED’s internet banking account by submitting a fake CIB request form with forged signatures of the company’s directors.
The mastermind behind the fraud was Vaibhav Pitadia, who worked as the branch manager at Axis Bank in Rajkot. Pitadia is alleged to have worked in collusion with his associates, including Shailesh from Rajkot, Nehaben, and Shubham from Surat. They used the manager’s position to facilitate the transfer of the stolen money into various mule accounts, which were set up specifically to launder the funds.
Once the money was transferred to these mule accounts, the accused withdrew the funds for personal use. The police also revealed that Pitadia used his access to corporate banking systems to execute the fraudulent transactions seamlessly.