BANGALORE: Fraudsters involved in an international credit card skimming fraud were arrested by the police within a fortnight of the first complaint reported by employees of an electronics shop in Indiranagar.
The Indiranagar police arrested Manoj Kumar (38) of Chennai, Waseem Pasha (28) and Imran Khan (28) of Bangalore and Prashanth Dushwanth Rane and Rahul Dulera (28), residents of Mumbai, and confiscated over 1,300 fake credit cards, four embossing machine, three laptops and four card readers from them.
The scam first came to light on May 6 when employees of Century Enterprises on Indiranagar Double Road lodged a complaint with the local police, suspecting Prashanth and Rahul, who had visited the store and bought an iPhone.
During billing, the first few credit cards were declined. When they took out a fourth card to pay, the employees asked for ID proof. According to the employees, the scamsters even had multiple ID proofs with them. “Growing even more suspicious, the employees attempted to take a picture of the scamsters. But, by the time they took one picture, Prashanth and Rahul realised what was happening and escaped. Although initially, the money was credited into the account of Century Enterprises, it was reversed, probably because the original owner of the card had lodged a complaint. This is when they lodged a complaint with Indiranagar police,” police officials said.
The picture was shared WhatsApp among various retail owners. Local informants were also provided details of the two and police officials were constantly on the lookout for the accused.
A few days later, police got a tip-off that two persons who looked like Prashanth and Rahul were on 100 Feet Road in Indiranagar. They were picked up by the police.
“During questioning, they revealed that Waseem and Imran Khan were in another shop in the same area. Since it had been less than an hour since we picked the two, neither Imran nor Waseem had realised what had happened and we found them in another shop,” officials said.
Gadgets Sold in Chennai
The only contact Imran Khan, Prashanth Dushwanth Rane and Rahul Dulera had was Waseem Khan, who handed them credit cards to do the purchasing. The ‘purchased’ items were then given to him, who then travelled to Chennai and handed it over to Manoj Kumar. The gadgets were sold in the black market. The trio were put up in a hotel in Cottonpet. Detailed interrogation of Waseem led the police to Manoj Kumar, who was caught in Chennai.