Hyderabad: A Patancheru-based engineering company allegedly lost over ₹35 lakh after fraudsters hacked a vendor’s email account and tricked it into transferring payments to another bank account. On Thursday, S Bhargava (37), vice president of operations at the engineering company, which manufactures gas plants, approached the police with a complaint.According to the complainant, the company received an email at 12.14 pm on Oct 3 from the email ID of an engineering firm that regularly supplies machinery to it. “The message said the vendor’s bank account details had changed and asked us to update our records for all future payments. The email also carried earlier genuine correspondence between the two firms in its chain, which left us with no reason for suspicion regarding the request to change bank account details,” the complainant told police.Acting on the email, the complainant’s firm updated the vendor’s bank details in its net-banking records and made two remittances totalling ₹35.5 lakh on Oct 5. The vendor was informed of the transaction through WhatsApp on Oct 6.“On Oct 7, the vendor called to say the money had not arrived. When we referred to the email about the change in bank account details, the vendor denied ever sending it. We realised that the fraudsters had hacked the vendor’s email ID and provided their own bank account details. We immediately alerted our bank,” the complainant alleged.Based on the complaint, Cyberabad cybercrime police registered a case under Section 318(4) (cheating) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Section 66-D of the Information Technology Act on Thursday.
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