The revelation was made after STF Noida busted a gang of credit card scam artists and arrested four fraudsters from Ghaziabad
New Delhi: If you have a credit card with leading banks then the chances are high that your personal data is being sold to scamsters who will attempt to siphon money from your card by posing as a bank executive. Recently several armed and para-military personnel were targeted by Delhi NCR based cyber criminals who had leaked their credit card data from a third-party data management firm.
The revelation was made after STF Noida busted a gang of credit card scam artists and arrested four fraudsters from Ghaziabad. According to officials, the gang has duped thousands of credit card holders and have been operating from last year. Cops have seized data of 50,000 credit card holders of different banks, which mostly includes army and para-military personnel as customers.
The case was cracked after an NDRF personnel approached the cops that he was duped by unidentified criminals who posed as bank executive called him asking to upgrade his card security features and asked for a one-time password (OTP) sent on his mobile.
Explaining the modus-operandi, Deputy Superintendent of Police, STF, Raj Kumar Mishra told MyNation, “the core of this scam is credit card data leak, which in this case was done by an executive of Money Mantra, a firm that does data management for the banks. He sold the data to scamsters who then hired female telecallers to call as a bank executive and ask for OTP of customers claiming that bank is upgrading the security of their card. The money was sent on online wallets like PayTM and Mobikwik, which were opened using fake details and SIM.”
Mishra explained that the gang was working on a commission basis. Each member of the gang was getting 10 per cent for successfully delivering their work. “Tele callers were getting 10 per cent of the amount they were able to extract from customers. Similarly, other gang members who were arranging mobile connections on a fake id and bank accounts were also getting a commission of 10 per cent. They had also rented bank accounts and used to pay the account holder a commission for keeping their money and then forwarding it to them,” Mishra said.
Those arrested have been identified as Baldev Singh, Sanjit, Tapeshwar and Gajendra. Cops are trying to ascertain the number of people they have cheated and money they have extracted. Cops have contacted the bank whose customer data have been found with the gang, which includes City Bank, Axis, ICICI, IndusInd, RBL and others. “We are going to write to the bank to know how their customers' confidential data is out there on sale. Officials of data management firm are also under questioning for data breach,” Raj Kumar Mishra said.
Read Exclusive COVID-19 Coronavirus News updates, at MyNation.