ONLINE CREDIT CARD FRAUD ON E-BAY

Bhubaneswar: Rourkela police busted a racket involving an online fraud worth Rs 12.5 lakh. The modus operandi of the accused was to hack into the eBay India website and make purchases in the names of credit cardholders.

Two persons, including alleged mastermind Debasis Pandit, a BCA student, were arrested and forwarded to the court of the subdivisional judicial magistrate, Rourkela. The other arrested person is Rabi Narayan Sahu.

Superintendent of police D.S. Kutty said the duo was later remanded in judicial custody but four other persons allegedly involved in the racket were untraceable. A case has been registered against the accused under Sections 420 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 66 of the IT Act and further investigation is on, he said.

While Pandit, son of a retired employee of Rourkela Steel Plant, was arrested from his Sector VII residence last night, Sahu, his associate and a constable, was nabbed at his house in Uditnagar.
Pandit allegedly hacked into the eBay India site and gathered the details of around 700 credit cardholders. He then made purchases by using their passwords.

The fraud came to the notice of eBay officials when it was detected that several purchases were made from Rourkela while the customers were based in cities such as Bangalore, Baroda and Jaipur and even London, said V. Naini, deputy manager of eBay.The company brought the matter to the notice of Rourkela police after some customers lodged complaints.Pandit used the address of Sahu for delivery of the purchased goods, said police. The gang was involved in train, flight and hotel reservations.
The hand of one Satya Samal, recently arrested in Bangalore, is suspected in the crime. Samal had booked a room in a Bangalore hotel for three months. The hotel and transport bills rose to Rs 5 lakh, which he did not pay. Samal was arrested for non-payment of bills, following which Pandit rushed to Bangalore and stood guarantor for his release on bail, police sources said.

TAMIL TIGER CREDIT CARD SCAM SPREADS TO CHENNAI, INDIA

The Sri Ramachandra Medical College police at Porur, Chennai, arrested G. Elango, a Tamil Tiger agent carrying a British passport, on Friday and seized 28 ATM cards in his possession. The police said Elango illegally withdrew over Rs. 30 lakh from the ATM centres of a few nationalized banks and a private bank. The amount was then sent to the United Kingdom through unauthorized channels. It is learnt that the Chennai Police was alerted by a civilian who had seen Elango using several ATM cards to withdraw money from an ATM centre of a private bank on Mount-Poonamallee Road, Porur.

A police team led by the Assistant Commissioner Police Balasubramaniam caught Elango red-handed while he was withdrawing money from the ATM machine.

G. Elango (38) of Middlesex, United Kingdom, is a shareholder in ‘Thamilini’ -- a cash and carry grocery shops operated by the Tamil Tigers in UK.

Elango is from Valvetiturai, a notorious port for smugglers in the north of Sri Lanka. He is the partner of the LTTE’s cash and carry centres of Thamilini in London suburbs - one in Croydon and another in Southall.

After the arrest Police has found, besides the ATM cards, registration certificate books of two cars, a cellular phone and a passport. Tamil Nadu Police is now seeking the assistance of the Scotland Yard to obtain more information about Elango. The Tamil Ttigers are also under investigation in UK for operating credit card rackets in Europe.

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