Guwahati: The Mumbai police crime branch on Thursday apprehended five fraudsters from Assam, allegedly involved in a large-scale credit card scam amounting to Rs 1.26 crore, said an official.
The official stated that the individuals allegedly used the identities of individuals with high CIBIL scores to fraudulently obtain credit cards from a bank and subsequently maxed them out.
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“Following the FIR registered by the victims and the banks, the Mumbai police crime branch (unit III) launched a probe last year and has been investigating the matter”, the official asserted.
Upon investigating the matter, authorities discovered that the accused had used counterfeit documents to acquire 55 credit cards and subsequently used them to make purchases totaling Rs 1.26 crore. When the payments went unpaid, the bank’s attempts to contact the cardholders revealed the fraudulent nature of the documents, prompting the FIR, the official stated.
The official noted that the Mumbai police crime branch (unit III) traced the fraudulent transactions utilizing technical intelligence, leading to the arrest of the perpetrators from Morigaon in Assam.
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According to senior inspector Sadanand Yernekar, the gang employed a sophisticated multi-stage operation. They tasked a member to identify individuals with strong credit histories online.
“Once the gang selected the target, they created fake PAN cards using counterfeit information. While another member, operating an Aadhaar card center in Assam, then used those fabricated PAN cards to generate corresponding fake Aadhaar cards,” Yernekar confirmed.
He acknowledged that the gang used those fraudulent identity documents to apply for credit cards with the bank, and in some instances, the gang also applied for loans.
Yernekar further stated that to complete the scheme, another member of the gang travels to Mumbai or Delhi, using the addresses provided in the forged documents, to intercept the delivery of the credit cards.
“Upon receiving the cards, the gang members shared the details, quickly exhausted the credit limits, and then discarded the cards,” Yernekar added. “The banks discovered the fraud only when the banks attempted to contact the supposed cardholders for repayment.”
Notably, Morigaon in Assam has become a significant hub for cybercrime in the northeastern region in recent years. Authorities indicate that criminal gangs operating in the area have developed a specialization in bank fraud, particularly the sophisticated methods used in the recent Mumbai credit card scam, according to local law enforcement agencies.