A police officer linked to the case said that the series of illegal transactions was carried out on July 21. (Representational) A police officer linked to the case said that the series of illegal transactions was carried out on July 21. (Representational) CYBER FRAUDSTERS targeted the website of a leading ticketing company, carrying out 173 fraudulent transactions within 24 hours, causing losses to the tune of nearly Rs 33 lakh to the company. The 173 transactions included purchase of airplane tickets, hotel bookings as well as bus rides, the company found. The company then approached the local Pydhonie police station where an FIR was registered on Saturday. So far, no arrest has been made. A police officer linked to the case said that the series of illegal transactions was carried out on July 21. An employee of the company, which is based at Janjikar Street in Pydhonie, was informed by one of his team members that there was a problem with a particular transaction. While someone had booked an Air India flight from Delhi to Goa that cost Rs 7,436, the company had only received a remuneration of Re 1. Suspecting something amiss, the complainant informed other colleagues, including those working with the payment wallet linked to the website where the money should have been deposited. The complainant also got a statement of all transactions for booking flight tickets that took place on the same day. “It came to light that that it was not the only fraudulent transaction. A total of 164 transactions had taken place using the company’s online portal to book air tickets worth Rs 25.39 lakh while the company got only Rs 1 per transaction,” an officer said. In addition to air tickets, the company also provides bus tickets and hotel booking, among other services. The employees found that four fraudulent transactions worth Rs 7.35 lakh to book hotel rooms and five transactions worth Rs 22,881 to book bus tickets had also taken place. It later came to light that someone had rigged the system to carry out transactions on the website, an officer said. The way the payment system worked was that a ticket was allowed to be booked by the portal after the wallet linked to the website confirmed that it had received payment for the ticket. The fraudsters who rigged the system of the company hacked the website and reduced the confirmation value to Rs 1 instead of the price of the ticket. “This meant that the website allowed a ticket to be booked since the wallet would say payment was received after making a payment of Rs 1. Hence, so many fraudulent transactions were approved by the system though actual payment had not been received,” the officer said. Senior Inspector Avinash Kanade of Pydhonie police station said, “We have registered an FIR in the case and investigations are on in the matter.” Start your day the best way with the Express Morning Briefing For all the latest Mumbai News, download Indian Express App

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