Five people have been arrested for duping banks of over Rs 90 lakh by using PAN details of 95 celebrities including Bollywood actor Abhishek Bachchan and former captain of the Indian cricket team M. S. Dhoni, and getting credit cards issued in their names, an official said on Friday.
According to officials, the cards were issued by Pune-based fintech startup 'One Card'.
Some of the other celebrities whose names and details were used by the fraudsters were Shilpa Shetty, Madhuri Dixit, Emraan Hashmi, Saif Ali Khan, Sachin Tendulkar, Alia Bhatt, Sonam Kapoor, Hritik Roshan, among others.
The accused were identified as Puneet, Mohd Asif, Sunil Kumar, Pankaj Mishar and Vishwa Bhaskar Sharma.
Addressing a press conference, the Joint Commissioner of Police (Eastern Range), Chhayya Sharma said that a complaint was lodged by Prem Shekhawat authorised representative of M/S FPL Technologies Private Limited Pune -based company wherein it was alleged that several accused persons have cheated their company to the tune of Rs 21,32,572 by creating fake PAN Card and Aadhar card of celebrities.
During the investigation, police collected the IP Addresses from one card credit card company, device ID of accused persons, IPDR of 95 mail IDs, CDR of mobile numbers and details of bank accounts that were involved in settling the cheating amount.
"The fraud was conducted by a gang of Delhi and Jaipur-based persons who worked together in a close conspiracy. After a technical analysis, a raid was conducted at Babarpur in Delhi during which accused Sunil was arrested and various mobile phones, forged PAN Cards, forged Aadhar Card, debit & credit cards on fake names among others were recovered," said the Joint CP.
On interrogation, Sunil disclosed that he used to get an edited Aadhar card and PAN card from a shop --Indian Online Services -- which was jointly run by accused Puneet and Asif. Subsequently, a raid was conducted, and Puneet and Asif were nabbed.
Sunil also told investigators that he learned all the techniques of this fraud from Vishwa Bhaskar Sharma whom he met through social media app i.e. Telegram. Thereafter, a raid was conducted at Jaipur, Rajasthan and Vishwa along with Pankaj was arrested.
"Till date, the accused have together cheated multiple loan apps, multiple banks like Axis bank and multiple credit card companies like One Card etc. by rupees which amount to more than Rs 90 lacs to Rs 1 crore and spoiled the CIBIL score of various celebrities. They used all loopholes in the banking system of verifications and ensured quick siphoning of money," said the Joint CP.
The Joint CP said that Sunil, Vishwa and Pankaj worked in close conspiracy with each other in which Vishwa, a B.Tech graduate, was a technical hand.
"Sunil, Pankaj and Vishwa took advantage of lacunas in the KYC process adopted by the bank and cheated multiple banks, credit card companies and loan apps and divided the share equally among them," she said.
The joint CP said that further efforts are being made to find out if the accused has links to other cases. Bank statements, mobile phones and laptops are being analyzed, the Joint CP added.
"Banks and credit card companies are also under investigation regarding their KYC procedure. Money trail of over Rs 90 lakh has been obtained. Further investigation is underway regarding misuse of Aadhar updation process and KYC verification processes of banks by the gang," the official added.
(With inputs from IANS)
