KATHMANDU, FEBRUARY 3
Police have arrested eight people involved in withdrawing hundreds of thousands of rupees by hacking bank accounts using an app called 'Nepali Keti'.
According to the police, the group of people get access to vital information of anyone who opens the app and then use the data to empty the bank accounts.
Police arrested them today after an investigation based on a complaint filed by Hari Prasad Dhakal at the District Police, Range, Lalitpur, stating that his bank account of NIC Asia Bank was hacked and the amount to the tune of Rs 400,000 was stolen from the account. Police investigation found that the group was also involved in stealing several million rupees from various other bank accounts.
According to forensic experts, the group has been found using the Android Package Kit (APK) file to spread the malicious app through WhatsApp.
"An APK file is generally forwarded by someone and is not downloaded from the official Google store. This type of manual installation is quite dangerous.
The APK file is not tested by Android's app store standard," reads a warning issued by expertsthrough social media.
Many banks have reported incidents where customers have faced financial and data loss including password of their email, CIPS, mobile banking, eSewa and Khalti accounts, the warning adds.
Senior Superintendent of Police Siddhi Bikram Shah at District Police Range, Lalitpur, said that those arrested had been identified as Ajay Chaudhary, Raju Patel, Sahil Parvez, Dinesh Raut and Shiv Shankar Raut of Parsa, Rabina Chaudhary of Rautahat, Santosh Kunwar of Bara, Dilip Chaudhary of Saptari and Awadhesh Kumar of Bihar, India.
They were arrested from various places in Kathmandu and Makwanpur.
Police said during a press conference that they recovered nine mobile phones, one laptop and five ATM cards from the accused.
According to the police, further investigation is under way in connection to the banking crime.
Earlier, eight people complained to the Cyber Bureau and 12 people complained to the Kathmandu Valley Crime Investigation Office, but the gang could not be arrested. A complaint was lodged against the Bureau for fraud of Rs 2.6 million and Kathmandu Crime Investigation Office for Rs two million.
A version of this article appears in the print on February 4, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
