Online credit card fraud: 3 held for duping hundreds
Delhi police have arrested three notorious serial offenders for allegedly duping hundreds of people in several states on the pretext of redeeming their credit card points. The arrested have been identified as Vikas Jha (31), a resident of Tilak Nagar, Vicky (27), a resident of Mathura in Uttar Pradesh, and Avinash Kumar (36), a resident of Bijnor in UP.
According to the police, they received a complaint in which a man alleged that `37,000 was deducted from his credit card without him sharing one time password with anyone. During enquiry, it was found that the complainant received a bulk message with a link to redeem his credit card points. He shared his card and mail ID details on the website after clicking the link, the police said.
The modus operandi further revealed that later, his e-mail ID was logged in from a new IP address and his credit card was used to purchase online gift vouchers of a renowned mobile showroom, they said. The police analysed the details and found that mobile phones worth lakhs of rupees were purchased from a renowned showroom using gift cards and were sold online using bills and fake ID, after analysing over 100 mobile numbers, the accused were identified, police added.
All the accused were earlier involved in several other criminal cases registered in Delhi, Faridabad and Gurgaon, a senior police officer said. Jha and Kumar were granted bail during Covid-19, but they did not surrender. A nonbailable warrant was issued against Vicky by a Gurgaon court, the officer said.
The police conducted raids and apprehended Jha and Vicky from Kurukshetra while they were travelling from Chandigarh to Agra on May 27. On their instance, their accomplice Kumar was arrested on May 28, Deputy Commissioner of Police (north) Anto Alphonse said.
He was previously arrested in 21 cases of similar nature. After coming out of jail, Jha created a fraudulent website which had columns of full name, email ID and password, phone number, card details and date of birth, the DCP said. He used to send the website link to card holders asking them to redeem their credit card points through the portal.
The accused then purchased gift cards from the credit card of the victim and also transferred money in their bank accounts, they said.