Four Arrested fro credit card Fraud - TOI Mumbai 10th May 08

Young, educated and masters of credit fraud
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Mumbai: A BPO employee who masterminded a novel credit card scam running into a crore has been arrested by the Goregaon (E) police along with six of his well-educated associates. Prime accused Prakash Jadhav (25) was employed with Sparsh BPO in Goregaon since last July. The BPO was engaged in approving the credit limits of customers who applied to Barclays Bank for a credit card. Jadhav and his associates are all graduates, some of them having diplomas in computer hardware. The accused are technically sound, having worked in the past with computer firms, credit card companies, banks and printing presses. The is the first time they have been arrested, but the police suspect they could have committed similar frauds in the past. GOREGAON CASE Four arrested for credit card fraud

The Goregaon (E) police, who have arrested a BPO employee and six of his associates in the credit card scam, suspect they could have committed similar frauds in the past. According to the police, a customer who applies to Barclays Bank for a new credit card is first required to fill up a form with personal information and attach copies of necessary documents. The bank submits this data to the BPO, which processes it before evaluating the credit limit of the customer. The processed data is finally sent to CMS, a company which manufactures credit cards and couriers them to the customer’s residential address. Explaining the modus operandi of the racket, zonal deputy commissioner Shivaji Bodkhe said that Jadhav would make changes in the address, phone number and credit limit of customers. “The credit limit was increased, while a totally new address and phone number were assigned. The altered data was then forwarded to CMS which, by default, couriered the credit cards to the address mentioned. Now Jadhav’s gang-member would take the delivery of these cards, posing as a customer himself. He would also display a fake PAN card (manufactured by the gang) as identification proof,’’ Bodkhe said. The altered credit card was now used for shopping in malls and departmental stores. “The gang members would ask a shopowner to swipe the credit card and offer them a share of the cash received, instead of buying products from the shop. The money was then used to book two flats, buy cars and holidays out of town,’’ a senior police official said. The fraud went awry when Jadhav got into a dispute with an agent operating for the gang. “Apart from altering data of genuine credit card customers, Jadhav would also create fake identities (names and addresses of people who never existed) in the BPO’s computer system. An agent would be posted to take the delivery of such a card. Every agent was supposed to hand a commission to Jadhav. When one of them paid a smaller commission, Jadhav decided to teach him a lesson and reduced the credit limit on one of the altered card,’’ said a police officer. The management at Sparsh BPO smelt a rat last week, as credit limits of a customer can never be reduced. They zeroed on the computer which was used to make such changes. The computer had Jadhav’s user-ID logged in. Seventy five credit cards had been altered by him in this manner. The BPO management then approached the police who nabbed Jadhav and his associates—Hanif Shaikh (28) from Nala Sopara, Pravin Pujari (21) from Mulund, Kishore Talreja (34) from Thane, Amit More (26) from Vikhroli, Janardan Shinde (36) from Kalwa and Dilip Bhoir (40) from Kalyan. “We have recovered nine altered credit cards, seven cellphones, nine fake PAN cards and Rs 2.70 lakh in cash from the gang. They have splurged a large portion of the money they made,’’ DCP Bodkhe said. Police officials suspect the gang to have defrauded the bank to approximately Rs 1 crore.

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Mumbai: The Dindoshi police recently arrested four persons who used a stolen card and made purchases of over Rs 50,000 in just four days. On April 28, Yogesh Mistry, who works as a cleaner in Malad, found a credit card while cleaning one Manish Agarwal’s car. Mistry, who does other odd jobs too, kept the card with him. He told his acquaintance Ashraf Sheikh, who works in a mobile shop at Hub mall in Goregaon (E), about the card. Sheikh, on the pretext of checking whether the card worked, took it from Mistry and used it to buy mobile refill cards. But he hid this from Mistry and told him that the card was of no use. Sheikh passed on the card to his friend Mohsin who bought two Nokia phones worth Rs 9,000 from Novelty Mobiles in Versova, the police said. Mohsin, who was short of money to buy a two-wheeler, requested shopowner Manish Sawla to give him cash in return for the card. Sawla fooled Mohsin by saying the credit limit was over but swiped the card showing a transaction of Rs 45,000. Sub-inspector Guljarilal Phadtare said, “The accused ran out of luck when the bank alerted Agarwal about the huge transaction and blocked the card.” Sawla returned the card to Mohsin, who handed it over to Ashraf. He returned it to Yogesh. The police, on grilling Sawla, came to know about Mohsin’s role. “One person led to another, we managed to arrest all of them,” said inspector Hemant Patil.