GUWAHATI: On June 9, 2018, Mojammil Kaza (28) along with his brother Muntajul Kaza (28) (from Mankachar, Dhubri) arrived at the Dispur branch of State Bank of India and introduced himself as Utpal Dutta, an account-holder in the branch.
Utpal Dutta is an MLA from the Lakhimpur constituency of Assam in the north bank and like most MLAs his account is also in the Dispur SBI branch.
In the Dispur SBI branch, Muntajul raised an application for a new passbook after claiming that he had lost the old passbook. Once he received the new passbook from the bank Muntajul applied for the Internet banking facility on 22nd June.
Next, the fraudsters changed the mobile phone number which was against the account number and gave their own number. On 24th June, 2018, they opened an account in the name of Utpal Dutta at Allahabad Bank. Then they transferred rupees 6 lakh from Utpal Dutta's SBI account to the newly-opened Allahabad Bank account and took away the money. Rest of the rupees 8 lakh in Utpal Dutta's account was used for shopping by the duo using Internet banking.
This was only possible, as the thieves knew that Utpal Dutta never used an ATM card. All his transactions were done through cheque or withdrawal forms. So, no SMSes came to him if a transaction happened in his account. Moreover, forgery of signature is not much of a skill. The MLA was a perfect case for the fraudsters; he had everything they needed to complete the heist.
The poor MLA came to know about this whole cheating only on 13 July. Dutta then lodged a formal complaint at the police station. He even went further and found out about the main fraudster Mojammil, and managed to get a photograph. The police then after a thorough investigation managed to get hold of Muntajul Kaza from Mankachar, Dhubri but the mastermind, Mojammil is still at large and the police are searching for him.
"If MLAs’ accounts are not safe right here in Dispur, God knows what is happening with the general public’s account?" questioned Utpal Dutta. Well, the general public is already facing the heat of the cyber criminals and fraudsters.