Cyber criminals allegedly hacked the servers of the AP Mahesh Cooperative Urban Bank and allegedly transferred over Rs 12 crore to different accounts. The Cyber Crime wing of Hyderabad police registered a case and took up investigation on Monday after the bank officials lodged a complaint. Some persons allegedly hacked into the servers of the bank and transferred the huge amounts to about 100 different bank accounts.

The bank officials lodged a complaint with the police after the fraud came to light during internal verification. A police team visited the main branch of the bank to launch the probe. The team gathered details of the cyber security system of the bank. This is believed to be the first such e-fraud targeting a bank in the city. With its headquarters in Hyderabad, Mahesh Bank has 45 branches across four states.

In 2018, hackers had siphoned off Rs 94 crore from Pune-based Cosmos Bank, India's second largest cooperative bank, by cloning thousands of credit cards.

Earlier in January, Cyberabad police busted a huge global credit card scam,  and arrested a seven-member inter-state gang of fraudsters. The accused were allegedly cheating foreign customers under the pretence of providing technical services. Cyber Crime police of Cyberabad Commissionerate was carrying out a probe based on a complaint by HDFC Bank Credit Intelligence and control unit in Hyderabad, when they made the breakthrough in the case after busting a fake call centre in Mohali, Punjab. 

The complainant had sought action against a merchant for multiple suspicious transactions on a card swiping machine issued to them, with transactions being done through 85 different international cards to the tune of Rs 64.40 lakh between December 18 and 23, 2021. The arrested gang was allegedly involved in cheating payment gateways, and targeted residents of the United Kingdom, Singapore and Australia.