Three held from Jodhpur over Rs 4.47 crore Mastercard fraud

As per the complaint, the complainant bank had issued Mastercards to some of its account holders after they applied for the same.

The bank in July 2023, observed that in the past few years, mastercards issued to certain account holders were being used for making high volume transactions which were beyond credit limits issued on the cards and payment on these cards are still outstanding. Hence, due to non-payment, the interests on these cards are also outstanding.

An internal checking was conducted and it was found that there are 34 credit cards which were fraudulently being used for making high value transactions.

These 34 card holders availed purchase credit limit from International Merchants, and because of this after every international purchase the card’s available credit limit (Open-to-Buy or OTB) gets increased automatically. This is how the 34 card holders got an available limit of Rs 4.72 crore, said a police source.

Later the bank discovered the international purchase transactions, on the basis of which the 34 card holders availed Open-to-Buy or OTB. In reality, the said customers have never done those transactions. It happened only because of the international purchase intimation, but the bank did not get any money from the merchants regarding the international purchase. Hence, the money on the extended credit limit used by the card holders was actually bank’s money. The fraud customers so far used was this extended credit limits and caused a loss of Rs 4.47 crore to the bank. The amount also included the applied interest on defaulting on payment, said a cyber police source.

“As these holders of 34 cards failed to repay the money to the bank, the bank tried to connect to these card holders through calls, messages and emails, but in vain,” the source added.

The bank realised that it’s an organised form of cyber crime and eventually approached the police and filed a complaint.

During the investigation with the help of technology, the police found that some of the accused were located in Rajasthan. After this a police team last week went to Rajasthan and detained Mukesh, Vishal and Mayank from Jodhpur city and brought them to Mumbai. All three were arrested after the investigation revealed their involvement in the crimes, said another officer.

More accused are involved in the alleged crime and in-depth investigation is being carried out to check where the fraud money was diverted. They all have been booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act for cheating, impersonation, forgery, etc., a West region cyber police officer said.