Rajasthan trio arrested in Rs 4.5 crore online fraud

MUMBAI: The Cyber crime police recently arrested three accused, from Rajasthan, for allegedly providing their credit card details to a gang of cyber fraudsters who allegedly duped a private bank in an online transaction failure fraud case. The wanted accused sought refund from the bank in different credit cards, causing a loss of nearly Rs 4.5 crore to the bank.
Police are looking for more accused including a hacker who is suspected to be from Turkey.Police said the hacker posed as an international merchant and requested the bank to refund failed transactions on behalf of credit card holders. As he also submitted counterfeit purchase reversal documents to support the fraudulent claims, the bank transferred nearly Rs 4.5 crore to 34 credit card holders between June and Dec 2023. When the bank found that the credit amount was not settled, its vice-president filed a police complaint in Jan, and an FIR was registered for cheating and impersonation.
The three arrested were Mukesh Hiralal (28), Mayank Dadhichh (33) and Vishal Chauhan (31), all from Jodhpur in Rajasthan, were produced before a court and remanded in police custody till May 6. “Hiralal got Rs 76 lakh in his credit card while Dadhichh received Rs 3.4 lakh and Chauhan got Rs 96 lakh in his credit card. Hiralal told police that he had got Rs three lakh commission,” said police. Earlier in April, police had arrested three persons including a BTech graduate from Ghaziabad, for their alleged role in this case. The total number of accused arrested so far has now reached six.
The complainant told police that the ‘international merchants’ contacted them, claiming that several of their clients’ transactions had failed. The ‘merchants’ asked the bank to refund the amount to some of the customers’ credit cards and gave an assurance that they would later pay the bank. The bank refunded money in 34 credit cards, whose details were provided by the ‘merchants’. However, when the bank did not get its money back, it lodged a police complaint.
Police are analysing the details of all the credit cards used in the crime and expecting to make more arrests in the case. Investigators are probing the other bank accounts used by the accused to transfer money.
The probe in the case is being supervised by joint commissioner of police Lakhmi Gautam and DCP Datta Nalawade, and conducted by a team comprising senior police inspector Datta Chavan, inspector Savita Shinde, sub-inspectors Rahul Khetre and Deepak Tayde.