Three held for abusing debit cards

Three persons, including a security guard deployed at an ATM outlet in Paharganj here, have been arrested for allegedly duping over 200 people by obtaining details of their debit cards on the pretext of helping them and using the proceeds to buy air and railway tickets online.

The gang had been active for the past six months and duped people of Rs.6 lakh, the police said.

The fraud came to light when a man approached the Delhi Police Crime Branch on January 6 saying that Rs.42,682 had illegally been withdrawn from his State Bank of India account by abusing his debit card online. Investigation revealed that the complainant had withdrawn some cash from the SBI ATM booth in Paharganj a month ago and had taken the help of the security guard deployed there during the transaction.

Acting on the information, the police arrested security guard Mohinder Sharma (35) and his accomplice Ajit Singh (23), a commerce graduate, near a cinema hall in Paharganj on January 10.

Their third accomplice, Anil Mehra (52), was arrested later at their instance.

The police claim to have recovered 250 debit card numbers and their respective Personal Identification Numbers (PIN) from their possession.

It was revealed during investigation that Ajit Singh, a resident of Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh, became friends with Mohinder six months ago when he came to stay at a hotel in Paharganj and was impressed by the memory of the security guard who could memorise long numbers.

The two then hatched a conspiracy to use the capability of the guard to memorise numbers to get the details of the debit cards of the people coming to the ATM booth and abuse it.

Mohinder, who belongs to Jammu and Kashmir, would memorise the debit card number on the pretext of helping those who came to the ATM booth and also observe them punching the PIN. He sold the details to Ajit for Rs.500 per card and has made Rs.1.25 lakh this way.

Anil Mehra, who belongs to Amritsar, would find customers willing to buy air and railway tickets and got them booked through Ajit using the card details.

Ajit charged 60 per cent of the actual cost of the tickets from Anil who further sold it to customers at a price lower then the actual price.