Credit card fraudster nabbed in Mumbai

Habitual offender was involved in everything from murder to selling of pirated CDs

A 31-year-old man was arrested from Mumbai through the help of social networking site – Facebook — for involvement in the theft of ICICI credit card data of 30,000 card holders and then using it, police said.

The accused identified as Raju Tevar was arrested from Mumbai on Saturday, S B S Tyagi, deputy commissioner of police (New Delhi).

He used to get his hands on credit card bills by offering a commission to local shopkeepers, contact his victims over the phone and cheat them into providing personal details on the pretext of their card having been misused before making illegal purchases through the illegally obtained data.

“He is a habitual offender and has been involved in everything from murder to the selling and distribution of pirated CDs,” said Tyagi.

Tevar and two of his associates, one of whom is suspected to be an ICICI employee at a branch in Mumbai, had been operating this racket for at least a year. They accessed the entire database from a laptop.

He was arrested followed investigations into a complaint filed by a Connaught Place-based complainant who stated that she had received a phone call wherein the caller claimed that an unauthorised online transaction had been made with her credit card.

The caller claimed to be a bank employee and asked her to provide the credit card details so that he could block it and refund the amount.

“Soon after giving her details to the caller, the victim started getting messages that up to Rs 44,911 had been spent from her card. A case was registered,” said Tyagi. The investigating officer went to Mumbai where he found that the fraudulent transactions from the credit card had been made to make a payment towards electricity bills to the Maharashtra District Electricity Board company in addition to a popular online mobile phone bill payment service provider.

Modus operandi

Further investigations revealed that a man used to come to collect telephone bills posing as company’s agent to the shopkeeper in the Ambarnath.

These shopkeepers used to pay the bills on behalf of local residents for small service charge. “Tevar would offer 5 percent to 10 percent commission to them to lay his hands on the details of credit card holders,” Tyagi said.

After two months, the police after getting his profile pictures on Facebook located and nabbed Tevar from Thane’s Palghar.

He was brought to Delhi on transit remand and has been remanded to police custody for eight days after having been produced at a city court.