Bank of Maharashtra has filed a complaint against 22 residents of Bhayander in suburban Mumbai for hacking its central server in the city and allegedly exploiting a bug in the United Payments Interface (UPI) app to siphon off Rs 1.42 crore. According to the complaint, during the period between 26 December 2016, and 18 January 2017, the accused allegedly made 142 ‘request money’ transactions using the UPI. The fraud came to light in January after which the bank froze the accounts in which the money had been deposited and approached the police when the account holders failed to respond to notices ordering them to return the money. The police has filed cases of cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy and identity theft against the arrested persons. Police said all the accused had accounts in the bank and downloaded the UPI app and linked their bank accounts to it. They took advantage of a bug in the app to carry out the transactions. They did not have sufficient balance in their accounts but the bug ensured multiple transactions of Rs 1 lakh were successful.
