Three young men in Mumbai were apprehended this week by the police for allegedly conning local restaurants by employing an app to create an illusion of making UPI payments. The restaurant staff received messages indicating successful payments, only to later discover that these notifications were from a mobile number, not their bank.
The trio, aged between 19 and 21, executed their scam on three separate occasions near Vashi Naka between September 15 and 17. Subsequently, they were granted bail by the court, and the accused’s parents settled the owed amounts with the affected restaurants.
According to Police Inspector Ranjit Jadhav of the RCF police station, the first incident occurred at Shiv Chaya restaurant around 6:15 pm on September 15. The culprits placed an order amounting to Rs 1,810 and requested the manager for a QR code. Using an app called “spo*****” downloaded from the Google Play Store, they scanned the QR code.
This deceptive app generates counterfeit messages and displays a green tick on the phone, falsely indicating a successful payment. They showed this fake proof of payment to the manager before departing.
Upon reconciling their accounts later in the day, the manager realized that the received payments were short by Rs 1,810. A subsequent investigation revealed that while they had received a message confirming the payment, the actual transfer had not occurred.
The manager reported the incident to the RCF police in Chembur, leading to the registration of a case against unidentified individuals. Shortly thereafter, the RCF police received two more complaints from Hardeep Punjab and Kailash Punjab restaurants, both situated on RC Road in the Vashi Naka area. They reported losses of Rs 1,400 and Rs 3,260, respectively, due to the same fraudulent scheme.
The police successfully traced the suspects to the Vashi Naka area and discovered that two of the arrested individuals had a history of theft. Their phones contained the incriminating app, which facilitated their actions. Law enforcement intends to contact Google to have the app removed from the Google Play Store.