Student's life as a hacker exposed by eBay tip-off

CHENNAI: Police on Tuesday arrested a college student for purchasing
electronic goods online using credit card details of card holders from
across the world. T Bharathwaj Purohit (20), a resident of MKB Nagar
and a member of a community of hackers, had been buying electronic
goods online using other people's credit cards since April. Police
recovered an electric guitar, a printer, an LCD TV, a digital camera, a
weighing scale, a mobile and a laptop all worth Rs three lakh, and Rs
38,500 in cash from him. Purohit met Charu Sharma of Mumbai and Hathi
Gogaiyan of Ahmedabad online a few months ago. They introduced him to
an online hackers' community on the net and gave him credit card
details to make purchases. "Following Sharma and Gogaiyan's advice,
Purohit tried to book an expensive mobile and i-pod using the data they
provided. To his surprise, he received the items within a week. He also
couriered the valuables to them as gifts. He started buying more goods
online on 'eBay', an online auction website," deputy commissioner of
police B Vijayakumari said. Sharma and Gogaiyan had given Purohit
details of US credit card holders. Following complaints from an eBay
investigation officer, the city police arrested Purohit. He had made
his purchases from his personal computer. The police, with the help of
the cyber crime wing, tracked down his IP address. Preliminary inquires
revealed that this group of hackers got bank accounts and credit card
details of people for a price. "We have received information that the
Mumbai police cornered Sharma and Gogaiyan a few days ago for another
credit card cheating case in Mumbai. We have taken Purohit into custody
to get more details," a senior police officer said. Police booked
Purohit under several sections of the IPC, including 420 (cheating). He
was remanded in judicial custody after being produced before the
magistrate court on Tuesday.

Credit card blues: Cops unearth Rs 1-cr fraud

Unearthing a major credit card fraud, the Crime Branch of Pune police
have arrested a gang of four persons for cheating people and creating
duplicate credit cards. The gang is alleged to have cheated over 30
customers of Hotel Le Meridien to the tune of Rs 1 crore, according to
the police.
The gang was headed by 24 year-old Asif Zaidi Mirza of
Borivli, Mumbai, who though only a HSC pass, is technically quite
savvy. Among the other accused, Wasim Salim Patel (21) of Sainik Nagar
in Yerwada was a cashier at Chingari Restaurant in Hotel Le Meridien.
The other two accomplices were identified as Ubed Ajmat Sayyad (26) of
Mumbai East and Bharat Tansukhbhai Soni (28) of Goregaon, Mumbai.
Senior
police inspector Sunil Pawar said the accused had been stealing the
credit card details of the Le Meridien customers with the help of
devices like “credit card skimmer” and “credit card reader” that they
had purchased from a Nigerian national for Rs 60,000.
“When a
customer gave credit card for paying the hotel bill, Patel used to
swipe the card using the skimmer whereby the credit card details were
recorded for later use,” said Pawar.
“The accused then copied these
details on the magnetic strips of blank or blocked plastic cards using
computer technology. In this manner, they prepared at least 33 credit
cards of 27 multinational and international banks. These credit cards
were circulated among the gang members, who used it for shopping costly
items,” he said.
“The fraudsters were mostly targeting customers
having platinum, gold and corporate credit cards who have credit limit
of about Rs 15 lakh in India,” Pawar added.
The fraud came to light,
when Sunil Nade (33), manager of Financial Resource Management (FRM)
division of Citibank’s East Street branch lodged a complaint with the
Bund Garden police station a few days back.
Nade and three of his
bank customers had gone to Hotel Le Meridien on May 7 for dinner during
which time the accused Soni, Asif and Ubed were also present.
The
police suspected that when Nade gave the credit card for making the
payment, the cashier Patel either stole the credit card details himself
or passed these cards to his accomplices for the purpose. Then they
used the duplicate card for shopping goods worth Rs 10 lakh.
Nade
and the other three bank customers were shocked when they came to know
that such a huge amount was withdrawn from their account without
consent between May 7 and June 13. And they approached the police.
Acting
on a tip-off, the crime branch sleuths first nabbed Soni at Mumbai.
Later, they arrested Asif, Ubed and Patel. Police have seized the
skimmer, credit card reader, laptop and 20 duplicate credit cards.
Investigations
revealed that Patel was working at the hotel for last three years.
Asif, the gang leader, was taking as his cut 50 per cent of the money
made from the fraud. “It is very easy to identify a duplicate credit
card. Still some shop owners have allowed shopping through such cards.
We suspect that fraudsters paid some part of their income through the
racket to the shop-owners,” said Pawar, whose was assisted in the
investigation by sub inspectors N V Avhad and R M Gaikwad.
When
contacted, Jaswinder Narang, General Manager of Le Meridien said that
police had apprehended Patel about three days back. “Police have not
communicated with us later. Also, we have not received any complaints
from the customers,” he said.