Bengaluru police bust international email spoofing gang, recover Rs 2.16 cr

Bengaluru, Jan 20 (PTI) Police on Tuesday said they busted an international gang involved in email spoofing and recovered Rs 2.16 crore that had been fraudulently transferred to a mule bank account in Gujarat.

The cybercrime was allegedly orchestrated from abroad using a spoofed email ID for official transactions.

"The cyber crime police of the Central Crime Branch (CCB), Bengaluru City, have successfully uncovered a major financial fraud involving email spoofing linked to Hyderabad-based Dr Reddy’s Laboratories," the police said in a release.

The case came to light after representatives of Group Pharma lodged a complaint on December 2, reporting that unknown individuals had transferred Rs 2.16 crore to a mule account in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, using a fake email ID.

Following the complaint, police issued a notice to Bank of Baroda and froze the mule account.

Bengaluru City Police Commissioner Seemant Kumar Singh, in a press conference, said the spoofing originated from Nigeria.

On January 5, a court permitted the release of the frozen funds, which were subsequently refunded in full to Dr Reddy’s Laboratories.

Police said efforts to trace and apprehend the accused are ongoing.

Email spoofing is the practice of creating email messages with a forged sender address to mislead recipients about the true origin. PTI GMS SSK