Hyderabad: 2 officials of municipal corporation arrested in fingerprint cloning scam

Hyderabad (Telangana) [India], March 1 : The Hyderabad Police has arrested two people for allegedly cloning the fingerprints of sanitation workers and using them to carry out unauthorised transactions, the officials said on Friday.
The arrested persons, identified as Shivaiah Umesh and J. Shivaram, are sanitation field assistants of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation.
According to the police, the accused were illegally claiming the salaries of absent sanitation workers by using their cloned finger prints.
"They (the accused) have been supervising sanitation workers and recording their daily attendance through biometric devices, which are allotted by GHMC authorities to them. The device contains details of sanitation workers and their attendance gets marked through thumb impressions by the said device," the police said.
The accused have hatched a plan to illegally claim the wages of sanitation workers who were absent by cloning their thumb impressions.
"As per their plan, they have prepared the said fake finger prints by watching the process through YouTube, based on the fact that the accused persons collected 35 thumb impressions of sanitation workers, out of which 21 are working under Shivaiah Umesh and the remaining 14 are working under Shivaram, with whom they had an understanding to share the wages," the police added.
The police further said that several workers were not physically attending duties but their attendance was being marked regularly.
The accused persons made the sanitation workers press their thumbs on a layer of candle wax and then poured gum on it to capture the print.
The layer of gum, containing the fingerprint of the worker, was pressed against the biometric scanner to record the attendance of the absentee.
"The accused persons revealed that for the last two years they have been doing illegal work and daily, 20 sanitation workers are absent for each shift, causing a loss to the GHMC Department of approximately Rs 3,60,000 per month and Rs 43,20,000 for the last 12 months. Since both respondents have been doing this mischief for the last two years, it comes around Rs 86,40,000 for two years," Deputy Commissioner of Police, Commissioner's Task Force Rashmi Perumal, said.
There are about 900 Sanitation Field Assistants in 30 GHMC Circles in Hyderabad and about 24,000 sweepers and public health workers are working under the above SFAs, the police added.
On Friday, the accused persons, and seized 35 synthetic finger prints and two attendance biometric devices, were handed over to the SHO of Amberpeat Police Station.
A case under sections 467, 468, 471, 419, 420, and 409 of the Indian Penal Code has been registered.