KATHMANDU, Jan 25: Police have rounded up two individuals from a Chitwan-based audit firm who increased the tax payable for Bhatbhateni Supermarket (BBSM) by Rs 68 million after hacking into the online tax account belonging to the supermarket chain.
According to the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB), police officials dispatched from the District Police Office (DPO), Chitwan arrested Santosh Parajuli, 28, of Bihadi Rural Municipality-3, Parbat and Parin Pandey, 28, of Bhimsen Thapa Rural Municipality-4, Gorkha on January 18, from the office of Bihadi Business Management in Bharatpur Metropolitan City-3, Chitwan for hacking into the account of the supermarket and changing the tax payable for the company from Rs 62.6 million to Rs 130.9 million. The police also seized three laptops, two mobile phones, one router, and a CPU from the office.
The employees of BBSM were alerted on January 9 when they could not access the Integrated Tax System (ITS) account belonging to the company. Officials from the company promptly reported the problem to the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) Office, Lazimpat on the same day.
They were surprised to find that BBSM was liable to pay Rs 130 million in taxes for a month when the company generally paid around Rs 60 million per month in taxes, making sales of around Rs 2 billion.
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The IRD found out that BBSM had reported a sales of Rs 2.34 billion in the month and were only liable to pay Rs 62.6 million. Smelling foul play, the department then wrote to the CIB requesting an investigation on the matter, after having resolved the problem in the ITS.
Spokesperson for the CIB Superintendent of Police (SP) Sudhir Raj Shahi informed Republica that the bureau initiated an investigation into the matter on the same day, pinpointing the location access of the ITS account of the company on January 9.
“We found out that the account was accessed from the computer at Bihadi Business Management, a Chitwan-based audit firm,” he said.
CIB has registered a case of computer-related charges under the Electronic Transaction Act 2063 BS against the duo.
A preliminary investigation by the CIB has found no connection between the audit firm and the supermarket chain, failing to ascertain the intent of the audit firm in increasing the tax payables of BBSM.
“The hackers have claimed that they accessed the tax account of BBSM while randomly entering random account details in the ITS,” SP Shahi told Republica, “Since we have found no connection between the audit firm and BBSM, we are attempting to find the reason behind their action of raising the tax payables.”
He added that a preliminary investigation has shown that Parajuli’s two other brothers who are part-owners of the audit firm are currently absconding. “We believe that when we round up the two other suspects, it will help accelerate the process of investigation,” he said.
SP Shahi added that the preliminary investigation has also revealed that the group also accessed the tax account of a mobile phone importer and changed their tax payable. “We are awaiting a formal complaint from the mobile company in order to initiate an investigation into the matter,” he said.
