The statement has come in light of two cases being registered in the city of persons who were defrauded of ₹5.85 lakh and ₹1.43 lakh after they downloaded an .APK file sent by fraudsters.
Mr. Reddy said fraudsters were sending links of .APK fileS to people asking them to download the file to pay traffic fines. After downloading the file, fraudster hack the mobile phone to get a lot of information, including OTPs, which help in unauthorised deduction of money from bank accounts.
Mr. Reddy said that if anyone has to download any app, it should be verified from the Google Play and Apple Store.
A 41-year-old resident of Marnamikatte filed a complaint about losing ₹5.85 lakh after downloading mpari.apk file that he had received on December 7. In the complaint filed on Thursday at Mangaluru South police station, the victim said the file was part of an SMS sent as traffic vehicle notice.
Soon after he opened the file, the victim started receiving a series of OTPs. The fraudsters accessed these OTPs and an amount of ₹4.55 lakh got deducted from his SBI credit card, while ₹1.09 lakh was deducted from his IDFC credit card and ₹19,995 from another SBI credit card.
A resident of Idya in Surathkal lost ₹1.44 lakh after downloading ‘RTO’.apk file. In the complaint registered on December 18, the victim said he received the file on December 4. He downloaded the file and deleted it soon after. On December 16, the victim received an SMS about the debit of ₹99,000 and ₹44,000 from his Union Bank of India’s Savings account in Kodialbail. He went to the branch wherein he was told that ₹99,000 was credited to the account of one K. Aravind, while ₹44,000 was credited to the account of one Sriram. The two amounts were deducted through UPI and it was not authorised by him.
As per the advice of the bank, he called the Cyber Crime Portal 1930 to lodge a cheating complaint, which was now registered at the Surathkal police station.
Published – December 19, 2025 11:32 pm IST
