Once again, a cloned credit card made its rounds in Bangalore shopping arcades. This time, the victim is none other than Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman of the $35-billion Aditya Birla Group.
Fraudsters cloned the Standard Chartered Platinum credit card of the high-profile industrialist and went on a six-day shopping spree — from September 15 to 20 — in malls across the city. They splurged Rs 2.86 lakh on jewellery and electronic gadgets. All this while, Birla was in Mumbai and the original credit card was with him.
A complaint was lodged at the Worli police station, Mumbai, September 24 by an executive of the Aditya Birla Group. The fraud came to light on September 23, when the bank sent a statement to Birla’s office detailing the credit card transactions made in Bangalore.
One of the finance wing executives was the first to detect the anomaly. “How could our boss go on a shopping spree in Bangalore when he has been in Mumbai,” he asked. Cross-checking with Birla, his staff found that the original credit card had been with him throughout.
The Worli police registered an FIR (crime number 298/11) under section 420 of the Indian Penal Code and other provisions of the Information Technology Act. Inspector Sudhir Mahadik, who confirmed receipt of the complaint on behalf of Birla, told Bangalore Mirror, “Preliminary investigations have revealed that fraudsters have used Birla’s credit card for shopping in Bangalore. We have formed a special team to probe the matter, and have alerted our counterparts in Bangalore.” According to the police, the fraudsters swiped Birla’s card around 10 times in six days.
G K Tulsiyani, a representative of the Birla Group, said, “Kumar Man-galam Birla had not been to Bang-alore during the time the purchases using his card were made. It seems his card has been cloned as he has the original card with him. The cops are probing the matter.”
In similar cases reported a couple of months ago, the Bangalore Police arrested two people who went on a shopping spree at the UB City mall with some cloned credit cards.
The tip-off had come after Crime Branch sleuths of the Mumbai Police arrested Suhail, Afsar and Nadeem, both Bangalore residents, and Bhaskar, from Kalyan near Mumbai, on charges of cloning credit cards and allegedly using them for shopping.
Moving into action, the Bangalore Police arrested Jayakumar Samuel of Bangalore and Harish Steven of Mysore, recovering 205 cloned cards from them.
The Mumbai Police too had recovered 77 fake credit cards.
CCTV grabs had showed the culprits, led by Suhail, visiting several showrooms of leading mercantile brands at UB City, Indiranagar, Brigade Road, buying goods worth more than Rs 25 lakh.
Courtesy- http://www.bangaloremirror.com
