Cops get lead from jail to crack credit card fraud

KOLKATA: Two months after the detective department busted a gang in Kolkata that used courier boys to steal credit card details and buy gold coins with fraudulently obtained duplicate cards, the sleuths on Thursday claimed to have solved another vexing case involving the same gang members.
In this new case, they used to submit fake ID cards in the name of R G Kar Hospital employees and picked up credit cards from the American Express Bank.They then shopped for Rs 14,21,173 before the Hungford Street branch came across the fraud and complained to the Shakespeare Sarani police station.
"When we saw the photographs of the accused in the bank's data base, we found out that it was the same gang that we had arrested in February for credit card fraud. We took old accused Pintu Chaki, Somen Darji and Niroy Kumar Kundu into our custody from jail and got to know of three others who were involved with the American Express fraud. We have arrested Debraj Biswas and one Pintu Gupta in the fresh case and taken them in police custody," said Pallab Kanti Ghosh, joint CP (crime). One person is absconding in this case. In all, seven persons of the gang have been arrested in these two cases so far.
The modus operandi was safe, dangerously effective and would go unchecked unless the customer or the bank was alert. In fact, the scam would have gone on for much longer if the gang hadn't become greedy and tried to do too much too quickly. The gang exploited the fact that most major courier companies have outsourced work to local firms in less popular pockets of the city. They tapped courier boys willing to make a fast buck. These deliverymen have no security or background check.
Those working for the gang would carefully extract the new card from the envelope, photocopy it for the card number, CVV number and expiry date and reseal the envelope. Upon delivery, he would politely ask for the customer's PAN card or voter ID card that has date of birth and father's name. He would then also ask for the phone number, saying it is mandatory for "records".
Now the gang had everything they needed to clone the card. They would call up the bank and say that the card is lost. When the bank asked for personal details, they had them ready and asked for a replacement along with a new phone number for bank updates.
The new card would end up with the same delivery boys who would take it to the mastermind, who police identified as Pintu Chaki.