THE SPECIAL Task Force (STF) on Sunday busted a credit card fraud racket by arresting three persons who had duped several banks of crores of rupees.
Owner of a travel agency was among the arrested.
Four plain credit cards with magnetic strip, 34 passport photocopies of foreign nationals, charge slips of HDFC, ICICI, Bank of Baroda, swipe machines of UTI, Bank of Baroda and ICICI, three mobile phones, 26 credit cards of various banks and signed cheques of Rs 12 lakh were recovered from their possession.
The STF sleuths claimed that they had prior information of the racket. “The worst affected were the banks as they were losing out on crores of rupees due to the fraud,” they said.
Also a senior official of HDFC Bank informed the DGP about the rampant misuse of its credit cards in March. On the basis of its ongoing investigations and the subsequent information received from the HDFC Bank, the STF discovered that a gang was involved in producing fake credit cards and duping banks.
HDFC Bank also provided details of cash transactions through credit cards in March made through the bank’s ATMs at Lucky Travels. Of the 31 transactions made through this ATM, 22 were high value transactions of around Rs 70,000 to Rs 1.50 lakh each. In these 22 transactions international cards were used. STF sleuths gathered that 18 transactions were made by foreigners through the bank’s ATM.
{{/usCountry}}HDFC Bank also provided details of cash transactions through credit cards in March made through the bank’s ATMs at Lucky Travels. Of the 31 transactions made through this ATM, 22 were high value transactions of around Rs 70,000 to Rs 1.50 lakh each. In these 22 transactions international cards were used. STF sleuths gathered that 18 transactions were made by foreigners through the bank’s ATM.
{{/usCountry}}“That naturally meant that all these 18 foreigners must have visited Lucknow around March,” the sleuths said. However, STF gathered that none of the 18 people had come to India then. It became evident that fake credit cards were used at the ATM at Lucky Travels to make high value transactions amounting to around Rs 1.30 crore in March itself.
SSP STF then set up a team to work out the fraud. It gathered details of the Electronic Data Capture (EDC) machines used at the ATM and credit card terminals. On the basis of the available information the STF sleuths raided several places and caught Sachin Chopra alias Sonu, Yogesh Mahajan and Kuljeet Singh red handed while they were allegedly trying to withdraw money through fake credit cards.