Post News Network
Bolangir, Feb 11: Local police arrested two persons in connection with the fraudulent transfer of MGNREGS funds in the district. Dharmendra Thakur and Sujit Agrawal of Patnagarh were arrested for allegedly transferring `4.97 lakh to other accounts by hacking the username and password of two government departments and obtaining a ‘digital signature certificate’ (DSC) from NIC Bhubaneswar in the name of another person.
Giving details of the sequence of events to media persons at a press meet Wednesday, Additional SP B Jugal Kishore said: “Dharmendra Thakur, who was earlier working as a computer operator in Belpada Block, was
handling MGNREGS payments of that Block and was involved in fraudulent
online funds transfer.”
Thakur had collected the user names and passwords of various departments and after that he opened eleven accounts by using fake voter IDs and photographs in SBI Patnagarh. After accessing the official sites by using the user name and password, he uploaded the names of the fake account holders in the
MGNREGS website to make them appear genuine, Jugal Kishore said.
Then he proceeded to NIC Bhubaneswar with a letter in the name of Jagabandhu Sahu, as executive officer of Tendapadar GP in Patnagrh Block wherein the signature of the BDO was forged and obtained the ‘digital signature certificate’.
“After obtaining the DSC, Thakur accessed the site, deleted the DSC there and registered the DSC he obtained in the name of Sahu. He accessed the sites of the horticulture and forest departments and transferred the money to the accounts he had opened in SBI Patnagarh and withdrew money,” the ASP said.
“During investigation, it was also learnt that he had forged the signature of BDO Belpada and a payment of `90,000 has been made to a computer firm
towards execution of a project in Yuba panchayat of Belpada Block. Bills have also been submitted to show that the
project was genuine,” Jugal Kishore said. A three-member cyber expert team from Bhubaneswar investigated the
entire sequence of events and further
investigation is on, he said.