Hacker siphons Rs 25 lakh off producer by impersonating him

Aurangabad resident Devkar (white shirt) was arrested on Thursday

A hacker hijacked the email id and other personal details of a film producer to divert Rs 25 lakh that he was to receive from Google to the account of an Aurangabad resident. The Samta Nagar police have recovered Rs 20 lakh from the man, who allegedly had given his account for a commission. The cops are yet to identify the hacker.

The police said complainant Ashish Bhatia makes web series and releases them on YouTube. He had been getting Rs 20-Rs 25 lakh every month on the basis of the number of views to his series.

The fraud came to light when Bhatia realised he had not got the money for the month April. Bhatia checked with the company, but was told they had already released the payment. Sensing something was wrong, the Dindoshi resident filed a complaint with the Samta Nagar police in Kandivli.

"We found that a hacker had breached into the email id, mobile number of the complainant [Bhatia] and accessed his personal details. Posing as Bhatia, the hacker provided a different bank account to Google. Accordingly, the money got deposited in that account," said an officer from Samta Nagar police station.

The cops tracked down the account that belonged to Lalit Raghunath Devkar, a mechanical engineer from Aurangabad. Devkar is learnt to have told the police that he had given his account just for a commission. The cops are still to get hold of the hacker.

"We have recovered Rs 20 lakh from Devkar. We have also found that this hacker has targeted many accounts in the past and stolen money from them," said the officer. A court has remanded Devkar, who was arrested on Thursday, in police custody till May 11. A team from Mumbai police took Devkar to Aurangabad on Friday to look for leads.