Another credit card fraud case has been busted in the country. The Mumbai Police Crime Branch has blown the lid of a credit card fraud worth over Rs 25 lakh. The police is said to have arrested three people, who allegedly used the credit card details of over 100 customers to purchase online airline tickets and mobile phone refills, and even to procure a bank loan.

The arrested accuseds have been identified as Sandeep Mullick (25), a resident of Mazgaon, and Shakeel Shaikh (23) and Mohammed Miya Umedin (27), both Sewri Cross Road residents. The three of them were arrested by Unit 1 of the Crime Branch on June 20, and have been remanded to police custody till July 1. The police have said that the amount involved in the fraud is estimated to be between Rs 25 to 30 lakh.

Explaining the methodology used by the trio, the Crime Branch said that Mullick was working as a courier boy for an agency called Supreet Data Tech Ltd. This company was outsourced by Barclays Bank for credit card application procedures. "Customers would be contacted over the phone for credit cards or loans offered by Barclays Bank. Supreet Data Tech Ltd. is responsible for collecting the necessary documents provided by the applicants, who would also provide details of credit cards they already had in their name. Mullick would photocopy these documents, and hand them to the other two accused for a sum of Rs 200 per case. Shaikh and Umedin would then go to a cyber cafe and misuse these credit card details for online transactions. Barclays Bank and Supreet Data Tech Ltd. were not in the know about Mullick's illegal activities," said Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Rakesh Maria.

"Shaikh and Umedin used the credit card details to purchase 180 airline tickets online. These were domestic flights from Mumbai to Delhi, Jaipur, Lucknow and Rajkot. They also made about 300 transactions for mobile phone recharge ranging from Rs 201 to Rs 3,999. Finally, they also procured a loan of Rs 1.69 lakh from Citibank. The total fraud is estimated to be between Rs 25 to 30 lakh," said Maria.

However, the case is far from over. The Crime Branch expects more people to be involved with the scam, and hence, a search is on to hunt down two more suspects in the case. "Mullick sold the details to four accused, two of whom have been arrested. He collected documents from 567 applicants, of which 125 had previous credit cards. Of the 180 airline tickets they bought, they used 84 for their personal use and sold the remaining. The total mobile phone refills amount to Rs 17,000. This racket has been on since December last year," said Senior Police Inspector Ramesh Mahale of Crime Branch Unit 1.