E-Paper
Three held for credit card fraud in Delhi
New Delhi:
New Delhi:
Helped by three website designers who would procure details of credit card holders, and two other associates who would give bank accounts, a 23-year-old man duped credit card holders by promising them cash prizes and gifts on the points accrued on their credit spendings, police said on Saturday after nabbing three suspects.
Atul Kumar Thakur, deputy commissioner of police (south), said the prime accused, Manish Gupta, may have cheated 250 people over three yearseven as a probe is on to identify more victims.
The crime came to the police’s notice when a CISF constable currently on deputation with CBI was duped of Rs 8,970 in January.
The constable had received calls from a tele-caller offering him Rs15,000 cash rewards, some gifts and an opportunity to feature in a lucky draw for the points accrued on his credit card spendings.
In his statement to Lodhi Colony police, the constable said he deposited nearly Rs9,000 in a bank account but did not receive the promised money.
When he found the tele-caller’s phone number unreachable, he approached the cyber cell on September 6. When the cyber cell’s probe didn’t yield results, he again filed a complaint, but this time at the Lodhi Colony police station.
When a new set of investigators began probing the crime, they realised the money was transferred to a PayTM account. “We soon got to know that the PayTM account was linked to a bank account,” the DCP said.
The police soon tracked down the bank account holder, Ashish, who works at a garments store.
“It emerged that Ashish and a civil defence volunteer, Abhishek, would lend their bank accounts to Gupta for receiving the cheated money. The duo would receive 20% commission on each amount that was deposited in their accounts,” the officer said.
Soon, Abhishek and Gupta too were arrested.
The police said Gupta had worked with a call centre until 2017 when he decided to quit that job and make quick money by cheating credit card holders.
“He would receive details of credit card holders from three website designers who would receive a share of Gupta’s profits,” said the officer.
Gupta too had allegedly opened nine bank accounts in his own name to receive the duped money.
The police have so far frozen eight such bank accounts.
