Butibori firm loses Rs 34.50 lakh to hacked vendor email; case registered at Sitabuldi police station

Cyber fraudsters have cheated Eros Infrastructure Pvt Ltd, a company in the Butibori industrial area, of Rs 34.50 lakh. They hacked the official email of its regular machinery vendor and used it to send fake bank details, and the company deposited an advance in the account the fraudsters named. Management was shaken when the fraud came to light. Sitabuldi police have registered a case on a complaint under the relevant sections of the BNS and the IT Act and begun an investigation.

According to police, the complaint was filed by Abhay Sitaram Pande (34), HR manager of Eros Infrastructure. The company was preparing to buy roll-forming machines worth about Rs 1.15 crore for its operations. For this, it had contacted its regular vendor, Divine Machines Pvt Ltd of Rajkot, on the vendor's official email.

The vendor asked for an advance of 30 per cent of the machine's price. Bank of Baroda account details and a proforma invoice were sent along with the request. Because information about the payment kept arriving by email, the company had no suspicion.

On September 30, the company received another email asking it to deposit the advance in an account at Canara Bank. The email came from the vendor's official email ID, so the company took it to be genuine. On October 3, the company sent Rs 34.50 lakh to the account named.

After the money was sent, the company contacted the vendor's director on October 5, and suspicion arose. The director said plainly that no payment had been received from the company. He also said his company has no account at Canara Bank.

After speaking to the director, the company understood what had happened. The director said his company's official email had been hacked and that cyber criminals had used the same email to make contact and send false bank account details.

Eros Infrastructure's management then complained to the police. Sitabuldi police have registered a case against unknown accused on the complaint. Police are now gathering information on the bank account into which the Rs 34.50 lakh went. They are also looking for the persons who hacked the email and others involved in the transfer of the money.

The incident has again highlighted the risk of email-based cyber fraud faced by business firms. Criminals first hack the email of a company or its regular supplier, then exploit genuine business correspondence between the two sides to change the bank account details. Because the email is genuine, the company is not suspicious, and lakhs of rupees go straight into the fraudsters' account.

Police have appealed to companies to confirm bank account details by phone or in person before making large payments.