A major railway tatkal ticketing fraud has been unearthed in Tamil Nadu. It involves fake Android apps developed by a resident of Tiruppur.

The Railway Protection Force (RPF) Intelligence Officials of Tiruppur along with officers of RPF Cyber Cell at Southern Railway (SR) headquarters (Chennai), unearthed the scam and arrested S Yuvaraja, a resident of Pothiyapalayam in Kangeyam Taluk, Tiruppur, on October 23.

"It is disheartening to note that a highly qualified person as Yuvaraja, who has done BE (Aeronautical) in Anna University and M.Tech (Aerospace) from IIT Kharagpur, indulge in such illegal activities," says a press release from SR.

Yuvaraja had reportedly developed two android apps - Super Tatkal and Super Tatkal Pro - to amass money by fraudulent means.

The fake apps enabled customers to obtain confirmed tatkal e-tickets owing to the speed of the application.

The modus operandi was that the users of both the fake mobile apps had to purchase coins pack (10 coins worth ₹20), which was pre-paid. For each booking, five coins were deducted from their coins balance. The payment mode for both the android apps was ‘Instamojo’ payment gateway, through which Yuvarajaa got the payments credited to his own savings bank account.

During interrogation, the tout admitted that he had swindled money of ₹20 lakhs from 2016 to 2020. There was approximately one lakh end users who had downloaded the said fake apps.

The accused has been arrested and a case has been registered under section 143 (2) of the Railways Act.

RPF cyber cell at SR headquarters played a key role in analysis of data and identification of the fake app developer’s location and also collected digital evidences like server source code, application source code, end-users list and bank statements of the offender.

Both the illegal apps - Super Tatkal & Super Tatkal Pro - have been deactivated in play store as well as in browser, the release said.

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