Three men were arrested for allegedly duping hundreds of people in several states on the pretext of redeeming their credit card points, police said on Sunday.
Those arrested have been identified as Vikas Jha (31), a resident of Tilak Nagar, Vicky (27), a resident of Mathura in Uttar Pradesh, and Avinash Kumar (36), a resident of Bijnor in UP, they said.
According to the police, they received a complaint in which a man alleged that Rs 37,000 was deducted from his credit card without him sharing a one time password with anyone.
During enquiry, it was found that the complainant received a bulk message with a link to redeem his credit card points. He shared his card and mail ID details on the website after clicking the link, the police said.
Later, his e-mail ID was logged in from a new IP address and his credit card was used to purchase online gift vouchers of a renowned mobile showroom, they said.
The police analysed the details and found that mobile phones worth lakhs of rupees were purchased from a renowned showroom using gift cards and were sold online using bills and fake ID, they said.
After analysing over 100 mobile numbers, the accused were identified.
All the accused were earlier involved in several other criminal cases registered in Delhi, Faridabad and Gurgaon, a senior police officer said.
Jha and Kumar were granted bail during COVID-19, but they did not surrender. A non-bailable warrant was issued against Vicky by a Gurgaon court, the officer said.
The police conducted raids and apprehended Jha and Vicky from Kurukshetra while they were travelling from Chandigarh to Agra on May 27.
On their instance, their accomplice Kumar was arrested on May 28, Deputy Commissioner of Police (north) Anto Alphonse said.
He was previously arrested in 21 cases of similar nature.
After coming out of jail, Jha created a fraudulent website which had columns of full name, e-mail ID and password, phone number, card details and date of birth, the DCP said.
He used to sent the website link to card holders asking them to redeem their credit card points through the portal.
The accused then purchased gift cards from the credit card of the victim and also transferred money in their bank accounts, they said.
Jha disclosed that he had earlier used credit cards for buying gold also but as the showrooms were closed due to the coronavirus lockdown, he started transferring money in his bank accounts.
The accused visited Pune, Panji, Bangalore, Coimbatore, Indore, Jaipur, Surat, Chandigarh, Shimla, Agra and Karnal to withdraw money so that no one can identify them, Alphonse said.
Vicky and Kumar provided fake SIM cards to Jha. The accused used to live in five star hotels during this period and had not stayed in a city more than one night in order to evade arrest, the DCP said.
A laptop, 15 mobile phones, 39 SIM cards and Rs 85,000 cash were recovered from their possession, the police added.
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