Jamtara Police Bust Interstate Gang Using Malicious APKs and ChatGPT-Generated Malware to Defraud Public in the Name of Govt Schemes

Press Release , Cyber PS Jamtara

Date: 26th January, 2025

1. Dr Ehtesham Waquarib (IPS) , Superintendent of Police Jamtara in order to prevent & curb APK(Application) related cyber crime in Jamtara district formed a team led by ASP (P) Raghvendra Sharma & DSP Chandra Shekhar & Officer in charge Cyber PS Inspector Jayant Tirkey
2. In this relation a raid was conducted which led to the arrest of a sophisticated criminal syndicate that committed cyber crime in an organised manner. Arrest was made after over a month long chase.
3. They created Malicious mobile APKs (Applications) in the name of “PM Kisan Yojna.apk”, “PM Fasal Bima Yojna.apk” and various Indian banks like State Bank of India, Canara Bank, Punjab National Bank, Axis Bank, NPCI International
4. These APKs were then sent to the unsuspecting victims via WhatsApp who would download it on their phones. This then led to hacking of their phones. They also sold these APKs to other cyber criminals for 20-25k for one APK
5. Arrested Cyber Criminal – (i) Md. Mahboob Alam @D.K. Boss age 25 yrs, s/o Nausad Alam , (ii) Safauddin Ansari age 26 yrs s/o Jalaliddin Ansar , (iii) Md Aarif Ansari @D.K. Boss age 27 yrs s/o Astul Ansari All R/o vill. Bankikala, Ps-Ahilyapur, Dist-GiridiMd. (Iv)Jashim Ansari age 30 yrs s/o Allahuddin Ansari Vill-Lakhanpur, Ps-Ahilyapur, Dist-Giridih (v) Sk. Belal @ D.K. Boss age 27 yrs s/o Nausad Sekh Mahjori PS-Gandei dist Giridih.(vi) Ajay Mandal age 28 yrs s/o Lilmani Mandal Vill-Siyatand, Ps-Karmatand, distt Jamtara.
   

   Registrations Open for FutureCrime Summit 2025: India’s Largest Conference on Technology-Driven Crime

6. These Mobile APKs had the capability to Hack into user’s phones and steal Bank Account Details , OTPs , Date of Birth using SMS/Call Forwarding which was further used to conduct unauthorized transactions in the bank account of gullible victims.
7. Of the 6 arrested , 4 persons have a prior criminal history related to cyber crime.
8. Over 14 Mobile Phones , 23 Sim Cards , 10 ATM cards , 1 Laptop , 2 Four Wheelers , 1,08,800 cash , 1 DSLR camera and 1 Drone was recovered from them.
9. Members were operating under the pseudonym of “DK Boss” and their malicious APKs were popular amongst the other cyber criminals who did APK based frauds.
10. Cybercrime as a Service: Police recovered over 100 such malicious mobile APKs from their phones during the raid which are being analysed by the team. A sophisticated centralized panel was also discovered which could view SMS of thousands of victims on websites.
11. Data of around 2700 victims consisting of more than 7 lakh messages from the victim’s phone containing WhatsApp OTPs, PhonePe Login OTPs, Banking transactions etc was recovered from the website created by the accused.
12. Data of around 2000 Punjab National Bank and 500 Canara bank account holders was found in their phones. This was used to target bank specific customers.
13. Use of Artificial Intelligence : Cybercriminals arrested are experts in android software development and were found to be using ChatGPT for malware development.
14. Inter-State Linkages : Owing to the seriousness of the matter, we have sought assistance from Jharkhand CID tech support team & Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), Ministry of Home affairs
15. As per the Samanvay Portal report of I4C the arrested criminals are linked to over 415 Cyber Crime Complaints all over the country with frauds amounting to More than Rs 11 crores.

Follow The420.in on

 Telegram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube