In a nation wide investigation, RPF has disrupted the operation of illegal software called ‘Real Mango’ used for cornering confirmed Railway reservation.
In view of the apprehension of increase in touting activity after restart of the passenger services, drive against touts was intensified by RPF of Indian Railways.
Operation of an illegal software called ‘Rare Mango’ (later changed its name to ‘Real Mango’) was revealed on Tuesday during action against touts by the field units of RPF, according to the force.
RPF units of North Central Railway (NCR), Eastern Railway (ER) and Western Railway (WR) apprehended some suspects and initiated the process of understanding and unravelling the operation of RareMango/Real Mango software, it is said.
In course of systematic unravelling of the working of the illegal software, it has been found that Real Mango software bypasses V3 and V2 captcha, it synchronises bank OTP with help of a mobile app and feeds it to the requisite form automatically, the software auto-fills the passenger details and payment details in the forms, it logs in to the IRCTC website through multiple IRCTC Ids, the illegal software is sold through five tiered structure: System Admin & his team, mavens, super sellers, sellers and agents’ and system admin is receiving payment in bitcoins.
Field units of RPF have been able to apprehend 50 persons so far including the kingpin (system developer) and key managers involved in operation of this illegal software and block live tickets worth more than Rs five lakh. Five key operatives of the illegal software have been arrested from West Bengal.
The software has now been fully decimated. It may be noted a coordinated nation-wide action by RPF between December 2019 to March 2020 led to arrest of 104 criminals involved and disruption of many illegal softwares.
The information supplied by RPF helped CRIS/IRCTC to strengthen security features in PRS system due to which the softwares stopped functioning at that time. Stringent punishment as per law should be given to those involved in the act. Also, the government should carry out an intense drive to find out such illegal activities in other departments too.