50,000 credit card holders tricked, their data stolen

NOIDA: Four men have been arrested for allegedly stealing data of over 50,000 credit card holders, including 40 police and armed forces personnel, and duping some of them.

The Noida unit of UP Police’s special task force (STF) that nabbed the four from near Diamond flyover in Ghaziabad on Monday, following a tip-off, said the accused purchased the data from at least two employees of a private financial services provider that handles data of various public sector and private banks.

The four have been identified as Sanjit alias Sandeep (30), Baldev (20), Tapeshwar (26) and Gajendra (35), all residents of Shastri Nagar in Ghaziabad. However, the persons who provided them with the data — Shailendra and Waseem, both residents of Delhi — are yet to be nabbed.

In a statement, the STF said on Tuesday that Sanjit befriended his neighbour Utsav Tyagi, a known data thief in police circles, and learnt the tricks of the fraud from him. “Sanjit later engaged Tapeswar and Baldev in his gang,” it said.

While Baldev, owner of a security service agency in Hapur, would source SIM cards of a telecom company for making calls to credit card holders, Class XII pass Tapeswar would create fake e-wallet accounts. “About 90% of the SIM cards belonged to one telecom company and we are looking into the source,” an officer said.

DSP of STF Noida, Rajkumar Mishra, told TOI Sanjit, Tapeswar and Baldev sourced the data from Najafgarh residents, Shailendra and Waseem. “Data of account holders with a public sector bank has also been recovered. Interestingly, Waseem posed as a branch manager with the bank and sold the data to the trio,” he said.

After getting the data, the three would call up on the numbers of the credit card holders and ask them to share OTP (one-time pin) with them.

A National Disaster Relief Force officer who fell into their trick said the trio pretended to be speaking from a bank and sought information from him. The officer was duped of Rs 1,70,000 as transactions were made from his saving accounts, along with money transfer to two e-wallet accounts, created by Tapeswar.

Further, the three also used some existing accounts of owners on condition of profit sharing with them along with some rental accounts.

“Some 10 existing bank accounts, including those owned by the accused were used and between 15 and 20 accounts were such which were being used as ‘rentals’. Gajendra used to charge commission for renting out his bank account to the trio,” Mishra said.

Three mobile phones, data of card card holders and KYC data of bank customers, were recovered by the STF from the possession of the trio. “They were produced in a court on Tuesday and sent to judicial custody,” a police official said.