This is a major fraud case whereby delivery partners exploited a weakness in the logistics app Porter, syphoning Rs 90 lakh from Bengaluru. The swindle was detected by a routine business audit conducted in July by Smart Shift Logistics Solutions Pvt Ltd, which runs Porter. After this, an official of the logistics company filed a complaint with the police. Insider involvement was ruled out through automated operations.
The authorities suspected it could be an inside job when the fraud was first detected, considering the scale of the crime. They looked at the backend operations of the company and found nothing internal as most processes were automated. This led to a deep probe with Sarah Fathima, the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Southeast), assigning a team to trace the refunds made by the company since January. This series of operations was headed by ACP Govardhan Gopal, along with inspector Eshwari from the Southeast Cybercrime, Economic Offences, and Narcotics (CEN) police station.
Understanding the Scam
The investigators soon came across several refunds credited to the same accounts, and a rather clear fraud pattern began to emerge. The police were following this chain of suspicious transactions when it led them to a Shreyas TL, a 29-year-old from Hassan's Hirisave. Based on confession questioning of Shreyas, the police managed to seize three others: Kaushik KS, aged 26, from Mandya, Ranganath PR, also 26, and Anand Kumar, 30, both from Mandya.
These were earlier cab drivers and food delivery partners for various online applications who chanced upon loopholes in the Porter app after dabbling in such scams in other delivery services. They eventually managed to pinpoint how to exploit the Porter system through trial and error for their financial gains.
How the scam was run
Porter has a system where the driver can get a part of the total bill through his wallet whenever he accepts the job. And if he rejects the delivery, he will have his money back automatically. The application does not allow abusing this system, and therefore it has a strict cancellation policy where it blacklists the drivers in case they cancel two deliveries consecutively.
The fraudsters bypassed the system. Geo-spoofing is an application of the technology, using which they manipulated the app so as to pose their locations at places where there are few available drivers. This way, they accepted the jobs using their fake delivery accounts. The amount of the bill was credited to their digital wallets. Then the amount was drawn from these wallets into bank accounts. They canceled the delivery, and customers canceled the order and received a refund.
The reason they did not get blacklisted was because of repeated cancellations, so to avoid that, the gang bought fake phone numbers from Telegram groups and created new accounts on the app with them. Additionally, the gang practiced geo-spoofing to change their location into neighbouring states, making it hard for the authorities to trace them.
A Perfected Scam
The operation of the gang was so sophisticated that they managed to make off with a total of Rs 90 lakh from the company. Taking advantage of loopholes in the automation of the app, they had syphoned off the amount without raising any suspicion in the beginning. But finally, after going through a detailed investigation, it was traced by the police, and the fraudsters were caught.
This case shines a light on the importance of secure and foolproof systems in online platforms, especially those handling financial transactions. It also highlights the need to frequently audit and monitor company automated processes to detect fraud before it gets out of hand.