Six held in Rs 40-cr mobile app fraud

The police have arrested six individuals accused of exploiting a technical fault in One Mobikwik Systems Limited’s mobile app, fraudulently transferring over Rs 40 crore. During the investigation, authorities froze bank accounts linked to around 2,500 beneficiaries, securing Rs 8 crore.

The case came to light after an authorised representative of Mobikwik filed a complaint on 13 September. The complaint said on September 12, suspicious transactions were detected involving registered merchants and unknown users exploiting a glitch in the Mobikwik merchant accounts.

Normally, payments via Mobikwik’s UPI or QR code services only credit merchants when a transaction is successful. However, due to a technical glitch, some failed transactions were incorrectly marked as successful, allowing certain merchants to illegitimately transfer Rs 40.22 crore to various bank accounts.

Following the complaint, an FIR was registered at the sector 53 police station. The arrested accused — Rehan from Nuh’s Rewasan village, Waqar Yunus, Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Ansar from Kameda village, Wasim Akram of Maroda, and Mohammad Sakil of Utawad in Palwal district — confessed the glitch allowed transactions to succeed regardless of wallet balance or password correctness.

The police spokesperson said the accused were remanded to judicial custody.