As Karnataka reported cases of fraudulent financial transactions using Aadhaar numbers and thumb impressions downloaded from the public domain recently, it has now emerged that the transactions took place over the non-live fingerprint authentication that led to multiple frauds in the Aadhaar-enabled Payment System (AePS). This is despite the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) in February stating that the live authentication will be rolled out from March 1.
While such frauds by Bihar- and Jharkhand-based gangs have been reported in several States across the country before, the frauds that came to light recently is the first in Karnataka, and the modus operandi here is also new, the police said. “Fraudsters have used different modus operandi elsewhere in a non-live authentication process. There have been similar cases in the MGNREGA system in other places,” a senior Bengaluru police official said.
