Bengaluru city police recently busted a gang of four people who made a Rs 12.5 crore fraud from credit card payments company CRED. The police arrested them from Gujarat.
Among the arrested persons was 33-year-old Vaibhav Pitadiya who works as relationship manager at Axis Bank in Gujarat. The police raided their hideout from where they recovered Rs 1.28 crore in cash, two mobile phones, and fake CIB forms during the investigation.
A police official said, “Efforts are on to recover the remaining defrauded amount. They forged signatures and seals on Corporate Internet Banking (CIB) forms. Using these forged documents, the accused gained unauthorised control over the internet banking credentials of the company’s accounts and transferred Rs 12.50 crore to 17 mule accounts in Gujarat and Rajasthan.”
How did the gang make such a big fraud?
Pitadiya uncovered a shocking discovery about CRED’s nodal account, which processed a whopping Rs 2 crore in daily transactions. He noticed that two linked corporate accounts were inactive and identified vulnerabilities that could be exploited.
Pitadiya devised a sophisticated scheme, recruiting an Instagram acquaintance, Neha Ben, to impersonate the company’s Managing Director. He forged crucial documents, including board resolutions and letterheads, to legitimize Neha’s fake identity.
Neha then submitted a fake CIB form and forged documents to Axis Bank’s Ankleshwar branch, requesting a new user ID linked to CRED’s account with updated contact details. With these fraudulent credentials, the group initiated a series of illicit transactions.
The police investigation revealed that accomplices Shubham and Shailesh created fake documents and opened shell accounts to transfer the stolen funds.
CRED discovered the fraud on November 13 during a routine account reconciliation, uncovering 17 unauthorized transactions worth Rs 12.5 crore made between October 29 and November 11.
CRED reported the incident to Axis Bank and filed a complaint with the Bengaluru police. The investigation led to the detention of Neha, who had submitted forged documents to Axis Bank’s Ankleshwar branch.
Further interrogation revealed the involvement of Pitadiya and others. The suspects had attempted to submit another fake form to activate another CRED-linked account but were thwarted.
According to the police, the accused accessed sensitive data, created counterfeit documents, and confessed to the crime during interrogation. They have been remanded to police custody for further investigation.
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