Kolkata Man Loses Rs 42,000 Minutes After His Phone Was Stolen

In the last few years, there has been a significant rise in cybercrime cases, with hackers engaging in various fraudulent ways to steal the personal details of people and their money through illegal means. While these were so far carried out through online scams and rackets, a recent case from West Bengal’s Kolkata city has come to the fore where a cybercrime was committed after a man’s phone was snatched from him. The man who lost his phone to a snatcher later discovered that a certain amount had been withdrawn from his UPI-linked bank account registered on his mobile phone.

According to the Times of India report, the incident took place near New Alipore where Sankar Ghosh, a resident of Kestopur was travelling in a nearly empty bus at night. He was returning from his office in Behala and was sitting by the window seat typing a message on his phone when the accused outside the windows who seemingly had the man on target snatched the phone and ran away. All this happened in a matter of minutes, leaving Ghosh in a state of shock.

Well, this was not enough as in the next 15 minutes of the phone being stolen; an amount of Rs 42,000 was debited from the mobile owner’s UPI-linked bank account.

Police registers case

While talking to the publication, Ghosh said that he got to know about the stolen money after he got another phone and a new SIM card. Mentioning that he never saves passwords in mobile phones, he asserted that his phone was surely hacked. Meanwhile, he registered two cases with the police in regard to the loss of the phone and the stealing of the money.

The officer also spoke to the publication and stated that they didn’t find any point of compromise as it looked to them like the pin had been entered for withdrawing the money, suggesting that someone already knew the code.

Notably, this comes at a time when there has been an increase in phone snatching in the region with snatchers and thieves now also targeting the personal data stored on people’s phones, rather than just the devices.

People are thereby always advised to not reveal their passwords or UPI pins in public. Meanwhile, in cases where someone’s phone is stolen or lost, it is very important to protect the data, which can be easily misused if not taken care of. This can be done by blocking the devices, erasing data remotely, and blocking the SIM card.