Jamtara cyber gang 'DK Boss,' who duped people of ₹11 crore using ChatGPT, busted

New Delhi: Jharkhand Police on Tuesday said that a day earlier it arrested six cyber criminals in Jamtara who were allegedly involved in matters amounting to ₹11 crore following 415 cyber complaints in different parts of the country. They had created malicious mobile applications (APK) in the name of 'PM Kisan Yojna.apk', 'PM Fasal Bima Yojna.apk' and various Indian banks, including State Bank of India, Canara Bank, Punjab National Bank, Axis Bank and NPCI International, it said.

The group members were operating under the pseudonym of 'DK Boss' and their malicious APKs were popular among other cyber criminals who did APK-based frauds, as per the police. Data of about 2,000 Punjab National Bank and 500 Canara bank account holders was found in their phones, it said, adding that this was used to target bank specific customers.

The group was using artificial intelligence in Android software development as well as ChatGPT for malware development, as per Jharkhand Police. The police is investigating the group's inter-state linkages and has sought assistance from Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, run by the Union home ministry. Those arrested were identified as Md Mahboob Alam (25), Safauddin Ansari (26), Md Aarif Ansari (27), Jashim Ansari (30), SK Belal (27) and Ajay Mandal (28). Four among them have a prior criminal history related to cybercrimes, police said.


A senior police official said, "APKs were sent to unsuspecting victims via WhatsApp who would download it on their phones. This then led to hacking of their phones. They also sold these APKs to other cyber criminals for ₹20,000-25,000 for one APK. These APKs had the capability to hack into user's phones and steal bank account details, OTPs (one-time passwords) and date of birth using SMS and call forwarding, which was further used to conduct unauthorised transactions in the bank accounts of the gullible victims."