Chandigarh, Aug 27 (IANS): Punjab Police's cyber crime cell on Thursday achieved success in busting a high-tech multi-crore bank fraud racket operating in the state with the arrest of a notorious key member of the gang - Amit Sharma.

ADGP-cum-Director of the Bureau of Investigation, Arpit Shukla, said the cyber crime cell investigated this case on the complaint of Vijay Kumar, Location Manager of HDFC Bank, who had complained of a fraud of around Rs 2 crore from a bank account.

During the investigation, it was found that the fraudster had siphoned off money from the account and transferred it to five different bank accounts. These bank accounts were opened using fake identity.

Revealing the modus operandi, Shukla said the fraudsters cunningly changed the email IDs and mobile numbers registered with the bank account of the victim and became the virtual controllers of that account.

Later Amit Sharma impersonated as Akash Arun Bhatia, the victim, and gained Internet access for his bank account.

Thereafter, the accused transferred the money to five different accounts opened in the name of Vikram Singh by submitting forged documents.

During the course of investigation it was found that all government identity proofs, including chip-based driving licenses, PAN cards, hologram containing voter ID cards, etc., provided as KYC documents for opening of bank accounts and for obtaining mobile numbers were found to be fake and fabricated.

All the cash withdrawals were done by the fraudsters through ATM cards and cheques thereby leaving no trail for the police to follow.

Moreover, the mobile numbers used became functional only during the commission of the crime and remained non-accessible thereafter, he added.

Shukla said during the investigation it was found that the racketeers were operating from Ludhiana as the mobile phones when used to commit the crime were located there.

Physical search and door-to-door verification of the area where these phones were operational was conducted during investigation.