Bengaluru: A suspected sim-swap fraud has left a 27-year-old man poorer by nearly Rs 7.2 lakh after cybercriminals allegedly ported his mobile number to another network without his knowledge, gained access to his banking credentials and siphoned off money from multiple accounts.According to a complaint filed by Kamlesh Kumar, a resident of BTM Layout II Stage and a native of Bihar, he was using mobile number 8971923161 for the past 10 years. On May 25, he suddenly found his number was deactivated. When he visited an Airtel store the following day, he was reportedly informed the number had been ported to Jio network. Kumar told police this was done without his authorisation.Enquiries at a Jio store reportedly revealed the sim card ownership was transferred to a person, identified as Shahbach Ansari, whom Kamlesh claimed he didn’t know and has no connection with.Kumar subsequently filed a lost report at MICO Layout police station on May 27. However, the alleged fraud did not stop there. Between May 27 and May 29, fraudsters allegedly gained access to his bank accounts and carried out a series of unauthorised transactions. According to the complaint, funds were transferred from his overdraft account to his savings and current accounts before being routed to unknown ones.Kamlesh told TOI: “I had purchased the sim card using my identity proof. I had linked the same mobile number to banking services. As I am working as a distributor in the city, I opened an overdraft account along with current and savings ones. The number was ported without my consent despite being used regularly. How can service providers be so negligent in allotting the number to someone else?”“When I visited the offices of both service providers, they only informed me the sim was not registered in my name. They didn’t share more details such as from where it was ported, in which city the number is being used or further information about Ansari,” he added.Kumar alleged the fraudsters and siphoned off Rs 7,17,660 from his accounts. They also changed the email ID linked to his accounts to sklove0143@gmail.com without his consent.A case was registered under Sections 66(C) (punishment for identity theft) and 66(D) (punishment for cheating by personation using a computer resource) of Information Technology Act, and Sections 318 (cheating) and 319 (cheating by personation) of BNS at southeast cybercrime police station.
