Cyberabad police bust Rs 50 cr global credit card scam

Hyderabad, Jan 14 (IANS) Cyberabad police have busted a Rs 50 crore global credit card scam and arrested a seven-member inter-state gang of fraudsters.

The accused, who hail from Delhi and Hyderabad, were cheating foreign customers under the pretence of providing technical services.

Cyber Crime police of Cyberabad Commissionerate made the breakthrough after busting a fake call centre in Mohali, Punjab during the investigation into a complaint by Abdul Nayeem, Authorised signatory of HDFC Bank Credit Intelligence and control unit, Hyderabad.

The complainant sought action against a merchant for multiple suspicious transactions happening on the swiping machine issued to them. Transactions were done through 85 different international cards to the tune of Rs 64.40 lakh between December 18 and 23, 2021.

According to Cyberabad Police Commissioner Stephen Raveendra, the gang was involved in cheating payment gateways. The accused targeted residents of the United Kingdom, Singapore and Australia.

The arrested were identified as Naveen Bhutani, Mohit and Monu, all residents of New Delhi. Nagaraju Bondada, Donthula Sravan Kumar, Sadhanala Mukkanti Srinivasa Rao and Pavan Vennelakanti are all from Hyderabad. The police seized Rs 1.11 crore cash, three four- wheelers, laptops, mobile phones, cheque books and debit cards from them.

Naveen Bhutani, with the assistance of Monu, established three call centers at various places like Janakpuri of New Delhi, Kaushambi of Ghaziabad and Mohali of Punjab for cheating customers under the guise of providing technical services. Naveen runs Google ad campaigns with his contact numbers in Australia, UK and Singapore for his companies providing technical services to solve problems relating to PayPal, Amazon and technical devices like router, Internet.

When customers responded to Google Ads, telecallers were taking remote access to their devices to resolve the issue. They were collecting payments through payment gateway links provided by Mohit.

Police said Mohit was collecting payment gateway links from Nagaraju and Srinivas offering them 50 per cent commission. Nagaraju used to collect cheated amounts through bank accounts linked with payment gateways and forward them to Mohit after deducting his commission and taxes.

The accused were also cheating victims through inbound calls generated through phishing mails or SMS about any of their recent purchases. Customers were ending up making transactions from their account. During remote access, they also capture the card credentials and use the same for transactions later as OTPs or PINs are not required for international transactions.

Naveen and his associates were also cheating the customers from these countries by obtaining their mobile numbers and transaction history through various websites after dialling them to get the OTP sent to their mobile phones. By informing tele-callers that their email accounts are compromised, the accused were offering technical services by asking them to make payment. During this process they were also collecting customers card credentials like card number, expiry and CVV for further use. The accused were making payments using these cards during night hours of the respective countries of the customers so that the customers could not block card or report fraud.