March 13: One million rupees disappeared from a person's bank account in a recent incident raising concerns of online fraud.

Shivanandan Mehta of Inaruwa, Sunsari was in disbelief to learn that his account number 01001117001327 maintained at Sanima Bank's Inruwa branch was debited by Rs 900,000 in the morning of January 24.

On the same day, Rs 110,000 was withdrawn from Lumbini Bank’s account number 01711600063202000001 in the name of his mother Rusni Devi Mehta. The hacker withdrew the amount through Connect IPS.

Rs 900,000 withdrawn from Sivanandan's account was sent to Parameshwar Thapa Chhetri’s account in NIC Asia Bank, Buddhachowk branch. It seems that the money from the mother's account was sent to an account in Siddharth Bank Limited and withdrawn several times. According to Mehta, the amount was stolen by hacking his email and password.

Mehta says that the hacker managed to withdraw funds from the account due to the negligence of NIC Asia Bank and Sanima Bank.

After receiving an alert on his mobile phone that the money had been withdrawn from the account, he contacted the bank and informed that the account was hacked and the money was stolen, but the bank was not interested in taking immediate action, Mehta told New Business Age.

“I went to the concerned bank within 5 minutes after receiving the money transfer alert from the bank on my mobile and informed them, but they were not interested. If the bank had immediately suspended the account of the unauthorized person, he could not have withdrawn the money,” he said.

As soon as NIC Asia Bank said that the account could not be closed, Mehta called the office of Connect IPS and asked them to freeze the money, but after the office said that the money had already been transferred and they could not do anything.

Officials of Sanima Bank in Koshi Province claim that as soon as the victim gave the information, the bank tried to freeze the amount. However, the attempt was not successful as the hacker had already withdrawn the money.

“The amount was withdrawn from the hacker’s account before we got the information,” said the official, “There was nothing we could do.”

The police could not catch him

After the hacker stole a large amount of money, Mehta also filed a complaint at the District Police Office, Sunsari. The police registered a complaint. However, the hacker has not been caught yet. According to Mehta, the police are investigating the case.

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Dan Bahadur Karki says that it is difficult to catch the culprits of such incidents immediately.

"We have started an investigation after receiving the complaint," said SSP Karki in a conversation with New Business Age.

Karki says that in recent times, maintaining weak passwords and keeping all the details in the mobile phone makes it easier for hackers to access the account details of people.

The victim, Mehta, has appealed from Nepal Rastra Bank to the Ministry of Home Affairs. After the hacker suddenly swindled the large amount of his hard-earned money, he appealed to Singh Darbar for justice. Even though he pleaded to the home ministry, finance ministry and prime minister's office inside the Singh Darbar take initiative to bring back the money, no one listened, says Mehta adding that he submitted an application to Nepal Rastra Bank, Baluwatar on January 29.

Nepal Rastra Bank says that they have tightened monitoring and investigation due to the increase in such incidents in recent days. The central bank has formed a separate unit to investigate such incidents. Executive Director of Nepal Rastra Bank Dr. Prakash Kumar Shrestha said that fraud cases have started to increase with the increase in digital transactions.

“Such incidents have increased due to the use of weak passwords and misuse of OTP (One Time Password). We are sensitive about it," he told New Business Age.

He said that Rashtra Bank is moving towards strengthening the overall banking security system by increasing financial literacy to meet the challenges.