Credit card blues: Cops unearth Rs 1-cr fraud - Indian Express - 21 Jun 2008

Over 30 customers of Le Meridien cheated

Unearthing a major credit card fraud, the Crime Branch of Pune police have arrested a gang of four persons for cheating people and creating duplicate credit cards. The gang is alleged to have cheated over 30 customers of Hotel Le Meridien to the tune of Rs 1 crore, according to the police.

The gang was headed by 24 year-old Asif Zaidi Mirza of Borivli, Mumbai, who though only a HSC pass, is technically quite savvy. Among the other accused, Wasim Salim Patel (21) of Sainik Nagar in Yerwada was a cashier at Chingari Restaurant in Hotel Le Meridien. The other two accomplices were identified as Ubed Ajmat Sayyad (26) of Mumbai East and Bharat Tansukhbhai Soni (28) of Goregaon, Mumbai.

Senior police inspector Sunil Pawar said the accused had been stealing the credit card details of the Le Meridien customers with the help of devices like “credit card skimmer” and “credit card reader” that they had purchased from a Nigerian national for Rs 60,000.

“When a customer gave credit card for paying the hotel bill, Patel used to swipe the card using the skimmer whereby the credit card details were recorded for later use,” said Pawar.

“The accused then copied these details on the magnetic strips of blank or blocked plastic cards using computer technology. In this manner, they prepared at least 33 credit cards of 27 multinational and international banks. These credit cards were circulated among the gang members, who used it for shopping costly items,” he said.
“The fraudsters were mostly targeting customers having platinum, gold and corporate credit cards who have credit limit of about Rs 15 lakh in India,” Pawar added.
The fraud came to light, when Sunil Nade (33), manager of Financial Resource Management (FRM) division of Citibank’s East Street branch lodged a complaint with the Bund Garden police station a few days back.

Nade and three of his bank customers had gone to Hotel Le Meridien on May 7 for dinner during which time the accused Soni, Asif and Ubed were also present.
The police suspected that when Nade gave the credit card for making the payment, the cashier Patel either stole the credit card details himself or passed these cards to his accomplices for the purpose. Then they used the duplicate card for shopping goods worth Rs 10 lakh.

Nade and the other three bank customers were shocked when they came to know that such a huge amount was withdrawn from their account without consent between May 7 and June 13. And they approached the police.

Acting on a tip-off, the crime branch sleuths first nabbed Soni at Mumbai. Later, they arrested Asif, Ubed and Patel. Police have seized the skimmer, credit card reader, laptop and 20 duplicate credit cards.

Investigations revealed that Patel was working at the hotel for last three years. Asif, the gang leader, was taking as his cut 50 per cent of the money made from the fraud. “It is very easy to identify a duplicate credit card. Still some shop owners have allowed shopping through such cards. We suspect that fraudsters paid some part of their income through the racket to the shop-owners,” said Pawar, whose was assisted in the investigation by sub inspectors N V Avhad and R M Gaikwad.
When contacted, Jaswinder Narang, General Manager of Le Meridien said that police had apprehended Patel about three days back. “Police have not communicated with us later. Also, we have not received any complaints from the customers,” he said.