With black-market Aadhaar data and fingerprints cloned using household supplies, scammers siphon off welfare benefits. Will the loopholes be plugged?
A flurry of frauds across the country in recent months, exploiting the vulnerabilities in Aadhaar-based payment networks, have put local investigation agencies and police cybercrime cells on alert. Criminal gangs have been found colluding with bank agents and contractors to clone fingerprints, defraud beneficiaries and siphon off welfare benefits meant for the poor.
In May, at least two groups of fraudsters were arrested by the Haryana and the Madhya Pradesh police. According to two officials in the Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan cybercrime cells, who asked not to be named because they aren’t authorized to speak to the media, several other …
Advait is a financial journalist and a former writer at The Morning Context. Here, he wrote on India’s banks, the wider financial services industry and the fintech ecosystem. He has previously worked with the Economic and Political Weekly, Business Standard, BloombergQuint and MediaNama, where he covered everything from the Reserve Bank of India to fintech policy.
Writer
advait@mailtmc.com
Mumbai
Ashwin covered fintech and banking at The Morning Context. Previously, he was at The Economic Times, where he worked across the finance, tech and startup verticals, breaking stories related to India’s banking system, startups in the new economy, digital payments, insurance and cryptocurrencies.
Writer
ashwin@mailtmc.com
Delhi