The Cubbon Park police arrested a man from Orissa wanted in an online ticket booking scam, which caused Rs. 27-lakh loss to a travel agency.
A police team led by Inspector S. Badrinath arrested Sathyaprakash Srikanth Samaal (25) of Rourkela and seized Rs. 2.81 lakh, mobile phones, a computer system and a laptop from him besides recovering Rs. 23 lakh from his bank accounts. The police said he had been cheating various travel companies, including Thomas Cook, by buying air tickets online using fake credit cards. “Between May 14 and August 8 last year, he had bought Rs. 27-lakh worth of air tickets through www.thomascook.in. The company, on November 11, 2010, filed a case of cheating against Samaal and we arrested him,” Cubbon Park police said, adding that he had confessed to the crime.
How he did it
The police said Samaal stole credit card information from those who logged in at cyber centres.
He also used to collect such details through people working in malls, hotels and commercials establishments.
“Using the information, he booked airline tickets online from various travel agencies. Later, he sold the tickets at a cheaper rate to others,” the police said.
Samaal had earlier been arrested by the Airport Police here in 2006 on similar charges and the Cyber Police of CID had investigated him for cyber crimes.
