Tax consultant transfers cash from deceased account

Hyderabad: A tax consultant, who illegally transferred about Rs 3.68 lakh from his former employee’s bank account by swapping the SIM card, and his associate were arrested by the Rachakonda cyber crime police on Tuesday.

The person from whose account the money was fraudulently withdrawn had died in 2018.

The duo used his documents and obtained a new SIM card and authenticated online transactions from the dead man’s account.

The complainant, city resident S. Sandhya, had gone to the Kotak Mahindra Bank at Kukatpally to complete the formalities to claim money in the bank account of her husband S. Deepak, who worked as a tax consultant at Muthoju & Co, income-tax consultants, in Kukatpally.

At the bank, Ms Sandhya got to know that about Rs 3,68,056 was transferred to other accounts through IMPS.

She said she did not receive any message on her husband’s mobile number regarding the transactions.

Following her complaint, a case was registered under sections 417, 419 and 420 of IPC, and 66 (C and D) of IT Act at the Rachakonda cyber crime police station.

During the probe, the police identified the beneficiary accounts as those of Muthoju Satyanarayana, 48, an I-T consultant from Balanagar, and P. Sri Durga Krishna Prasad, 36, of Kukatpally.

The duo was questioned and they admitted the guilt.

A police official said, “Having the details of Deepak, Satyanarayana and Durga Prasad obtained a duplicate SIM card and used it to authenticate the online transactions while illegally transferring the money from the bank account of Deepak.”