New Delhi, September 8: Railway Protection Force (RPF) on Tuesday busted illegal train tickets booking racket. The RPF nabbed 50  people including the mastermind and managers involved in booking railway tickets using illegal software named "Rare Mango" during COVID-19 pandemic. As per the initial investigation, the software logs into the IRCTC website through multiple IDs. The arrests were made from West Bengal, Assam, Bihar and Gujarat

RPF DG Arun Kumar said, "Its network has been unearthed, and the system has been decimated. Fifty people have been nabbed. It was an all-India operation." He added that the accused used cryptocurrency so that their money trail can't be traced. IRCTC Tatkal System Faces Hack by Pakistani Hackers, RPF Officials Bust Illegal E-Ticket Booking Racket.

Statement by Arun Kumar: 

According to a report published in The Times of India, live tickets worth Rs 5 lakh have been blocked. The RPF also arrested five key operatives of the software from West Bengal. RPF units of North Central Railway (NCR), Eastern Railway (ER) and Western Railway (WR) started the drive to burst the illegal train tickets booking racket. Mumbai Man Arrested for Booking Railway Tickets Worth Rs 57 Lakh Illegally.

As per the report, the software auto-fills passenger details and payment details in the forms. Bank OTPs were also synchronised with the software. It bypassed captcha to book tickets. The RPF said in a press statement said, "The information supplied by RPF helped IRCTC to strengthen security features in the PRS system, and as a result, softwares stopped functioning at that time." Between December 2019 and March 2020, the RPF reportedly arrested over 100 people for using illegal softwares for booking train tickets.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 08, 2020 11:34 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).