After Siddhartha Daga, eastern-region vice-president of broking firm Indiabulls was arrested in Kolkata on Tuesday on charges of hacking a client’s account and siphoning off almost Rs 1 crore, police are not ruling out the possibility of more such frauds.
?Although we cannot take any action before any complaint is lodged, we will talk to all brokerage firms in the city regarding possible incidents,? said an officer at Lalbazar, Kolkata Police headquarters. ?So far we have not talked to brokerage firms in the city,? Jawed Shamim, deputy commissioner (detective department-I), said.
Siddhartha Daga, 26, hacked into client Arunava Chakraborty?s account on August 6. In a span of one-and-a-half minutes during the first hour of trading, Daga allegedly sold off 65,000 shares of Arvind Pharma and transferred some to his own account.
Daga allegedly transferred 20,000 shares of Arvind Pharma to his account in another sharebroking firm Share-khan. He then sold 45,000 shares at a lower rate in the open market, which he himself purchased later on.
According to city police, while the transaction was almost to the tune of Rs 1 crore, Chakraborty?s loss was nearly Rs 46 lakh.
After it was reported by Chakraborty, SEBI banned Daga?s account. The incident, which raises questions about the security of demat accounts, also puts the spotlight on broking firms.
Amit Majumdar, executive director & chief strategy officer of Angel Broking, said: ?This is why clients are always advised to keep changing their passwords at frequent intervals and use some structure of the password that cannot be easily hacked into.?
According to him, the share trading company or the depository participant issues demat instruction slips (DIS) which are equivalent of a cheque book. The onus of guarding and preserving that is on the client. The depository participant only has to verify the client signature on the DIS before effecting the transaction.
