SP asks people to lock biometric in Aadhaar to keep bank account safe

Tirupati: Aadhaar enabled payment system (AEPS) is coming handy for the cyber fraudsters to siphoning off money from bank accounts without OTP. In Tirupati, one Radha Kanth Thakur, working as professor in National Sanskrit University fell victim to the latest cybercrime in which Rs 1.22 lakhs from his account in Union Bank of India siphoned off. The fraudster using the AEPS managed to draw the amount several times in the last three months, till it was stopped by the police by locking the biometric in his Aadhaar.

Thakur failed to notice the fraud initially as he received no messages from the bank on the withdrawal of money but found something amiss and approached the bank to know that Rs 1.22 lakh was drawn from his account.

Tirupati SP Parameswar Reddy said that after the verification of the account with the bank officials, revealing the fraud, Thakur approached the police who directed him to the cybercrime wing which took up the case. In the Cyber Crime Lab, the Cyber Crime police after thorough examination of the transactions in the Professor's account, detected that the fraudster used the AEPS to draw the money. Immediately, they saw Thakur install My Aadhar App in his mobile and guided him to lock the biometric in the Aadhar system to bring an end to the fraud. Further, the sustained effort on the part of Cyber Crime, the stolen amount was also tracked and paid back into the account much to the relief of Thakur, SP said.

The SP said that the cyber criminals started using the AEPS using the personal biometric in the Aadhar which most of the public was not aware of and wanted the people to immediately install My Aadhar App and lock the biometric to keep their bank accounts safe from criminals. AEPS is the latest tool for cyber criminals for withdrawing money from a bank account of a person through biometric (finger prints) without his knowledge or involvement. So the people should be vigilant and lock their Aadhaar biometric and unlock it whenever required.

If anyone cheated, immediately they can approach Cyber Crime Lab or the police station for remedy, he said informing that complaint can also be made on http://cybercrime.gov.in/ or dialing to 1930. Without any affair the aggrieved can get the money back from NCRP(National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal), SP said appealing again to keep their Aadhaar safe by locking the biometric by visiting the site myaadhaar.uidai.gov.in/lock-unlock-biometrics, which will take only a minute.