NEW DELHI: Two engineering graduates, two Aadhaar enrolment centre employees and a private firm worker ganged together through a Telegram group and duped a Pune-based fintech startup after procuring credit cards using names and PAN details of celebrities like M S Dhoni, Abhishek Bachchan and Madhuri Dixit, the Delhi Police said on Friday. The accused were arrested recently following a complaint filed by FPL Technologies Private Limited which issues “One Card” — a contactless metal credit card. The company got wind of the fraud after the fraudsters used some of these cards to purchase products worth Rs 21.32 lakh. The accused were identified as Sunil Kumar (42), Puneet (25), Mohammad Asif (32) — all residents of Babarpur in Delhi — and Vishwa Bhaskar Sharma (42) and Pankaj Mishra (37), both residents of Jaipur in Rajasthan, they said. Sharma, an engineer, had earlier worked at a government college in Rajasthan. He left his job and subsequently started defrauding people and firms, the police said. He is the key conspirator and technical mind behind the scam, they said. Mishra earlier worked at an IT firm and had an annual package of around Rs 15 lakh. He met with an accident in 2020 and later was suffering from fits due to which he lost his job, police said. Sharma was an admin of a Telegram group called “Loan App” where he came in contact with Mishra as they both belong to Jaipur. Later, the other three accused also joined the group, police said. According to the police, Sharma took a loan of Rs 2,500 from a Chinese application and later deposited the whole amount. Despite that his family members and other relatives were receiving calls from its recovery agents who were forcing them to deposit more more. The accused persons took loans from several Chinese apps and got to know about the financial trail. Later, they started working together and committed the crime, the police said. Sunil Kumar earlier worked in a factory. He was the main executioner, took delivery of cards and acted at the behest of Sharma and Mishra. Puneet and Asif were running Aadhaar enrolment centres and money transfer outlets. He forged Aadhaar cards and incorporated details of the celebrities. Some of the celebrities whose names and details were used by the fraudsters are Abhishek Bachchan, Shilpa Shetty, Madhuri Dixit, Emraan Hashmi and Mahendra Singh Dhoni, a police officer said. “After arrest, when they were interrogated, they disclosed their unique modus operandi. They used to get GST details of these celebrities from Google. They were very well aware that the first two digits of GSTIN are state code and the next 10 digits are PAN number,” a police source said. The source added, “Since the celebrities date of birth are available on Google, these two — PAN and date of birth — complete the PAN details. They got the PAN cards remade fraudulently putting their own pictures on it so that during video verification, their looks match with the photo available on PAN/Aadhaar card.” The Pune-based company alleged that these fraudsters approached the company through their app by uploading the details such as PAN and Aadhaar number to get credit cards issued.(With PTI inputs)
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/five-men-ganged-together-through-telegram-group-to-commit-credit-card-fraud-in-delhi-arrested/articleshow/98395445.cms
