Jagran correspondent, New Delhi. In the South Indian film "Vettaiyan" released last year, it was shown how a character cheats money by manipulating the QR code. Taking inspiration from that character of the film, an accused entered the world of crime and started cheating by tampering with the QR code.
He has been arrested by the cyber police team of North District. The accused has been identified as Manish Verma of Rajasthan, Jaipur. During interrogation, the police were surprised when they found out that the accused was only 10th pass and without taking any technical education, he was committing the crime alone.
The accused used a mobile-based image-editing application to edit the original merchant QR code, replacing the merchant's bank account details with his own account, resulting in the money being transferred to the merchant's account instead of reaching it.
A mobile phone has been recovered from his possession, in which more than a hundred edited and original QR codes, chats, screenshots and financial records have been found. The police are interrogating him and finding out how many people he has cheated in this way till now.
According to Deputy Commissioner Raja Banthia, on December 13, the complainant woman had purchased a lehenga worth Rs 2.50 lakh from a well-known clothing shop in Chandni Chowk. During this, he scanned the QR code shown by the shopkeeper and made online payment of Rs 90 thousand and Rs 50 thousand. After this the shopkeeper told that the money has not come to him. The victim also showed him the screenshot of the payment, but the shopkeeper had not received the payment. After this the woman lodged a complaint at the cyber police station.
During the investigation, the team inspected the shop location on the spot and verified the billing and digital payment process. Physical verification of billing software, manual bank registers and transaction records was conducted and the timeline of events was reconstructed through corroboration of oral and documentary evidence.
Additionally, a detailed UPI transaction trail analysis was conducted, which revealed that the complainant's payment was diverted to an unknown bank account. Investigation revealed that the defrauded amount of Rs 1.40 lakh was credited to a bank account operating from Rajasthan.
On the basis of technical surveillance, the team traced the location of the accused and while conducting a raid, arrested the accused from village Thali, Tehsil and Police Station Chaksu, District Jaipur, Rajasthan. Mobile phones were recovered from his possession which contained more than a hundred edited and original Q codes, chats, screenshots and financial records.
During interrogation, the accused told that he got the idea of manipulating the QR code from the scenes shown in a South Indian film named 'Vettaiyan'. He told that the fraud was carried out with this concept by using image-editing applications and digital payment platforms.
The accused had adopted systematic method for
Investigation revealed that the accused adopted a systematic approach to commit cyber fraud by tampering with genuine merchant QR codes. It used internet platforms to identify shops and merchants and obtained their original QR codes created for customer payments. Using an AI-based image-editing application, he digitally altered these original QR codes, replacing the merchant's linked bank account details with his own.
The edited QR codes are then shared with the shop staff or stored on their devices. Where they looked real and were later shown to the customers for payment. As a result, without the customers' knowledge, the money was transferred to the accused's bank account instead of the merchant's official account. After this, to avoid getting caught, the accused would immediately withdraw or transfer the credited amount through cash withdrawal and digital transactions.