Police say it was the work of employee and ex-employee who were unhappy with their pay and wanted to make more money

Two disgruntled techies allegedly used their skills to duplicate the website of a content protection company and told clients that it was going to shut down. The clients were advised to shift to a rival firm. Several clients were taken in by the deceit. The scam came to light when the clients contacted the owner of the company seeking an explanation and a refund.

Based on a complaint, the Vijayanagar police tracked down the duo — Ami Vivek (31) from Rajasthan and Sushanth Mohindru (23) from New Delhi — with the help of their counterparts in the cyber crime cell.

Sushanth and Vivek were employed by Aiplex, which provides content protection to companies in the entertainment industry and helps them tackle piracy and other such issues. Clients include MTV, Colours, Fox Star (India), Eros International and Bollywood Life.

Three years ago, Sushanth left Aiplex to join MarkScan, a rival firm. In August this year, Sushanth and Vivek allegedly conspired to duplicate the website of Aiplex and create a fake email of company owner Girish Kumar. “Using the fake e-mail, they sent out mails to clients of Aiplex asking them to tie up with MarkScan as Aiplex was shutting down,” said the police.

This prompted several clients to end their contracts with Aiplex. This went on for almost month. When Aiplex saw a sudden dip in business, Girish Kumar contacted his clients. He was shown the mail and also the ‘website of Aiplex’.

In September, he approached the police with a complaint. Following the online trail, the police tied the fake website to Sushanth and Vivek. They were booked under various section of the Information Technology Act.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (west) Anucheth said that the duo caused a loss of over Rs 1 crore to Aiplex. “They were unhappy with their pay and also wanted to make some money. We are probing if the owners of MarkScan were aware of what has happening,” said a senior police officer.

They were employed by Aiplex, which provides content protection to MTV, Colours and others