Mumbai cop arrested in airline ticket scam
Apr 10, 2007 - 4:31:05 PM
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The accused got hold of credit card numbers and the customer verification value - codes on the cards and then logged onto websites of leading private airlines that issued email confirmations of bookings.
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By IANS,
[RxPG] Mumbai, April 10 - Suspended police official Tushar Kadam, who had been hailed for saving many lives during the flood in Mumbai in 2005, has been arrested for his alleged involvement in a nearly Rs.140 million Kingfisher Airlines e-ticketing scam.
It has been a long journey from glory to disgrace for 43-year-old Kadam, who was an assistant police inspector. Kadam, felicitated for risking his life to rescue scores of people stranded in the deluge in July 2005, was arrested by the Economic Offences Wing - of the police Monday.
He rescued around 40 people, including seven schoolchildren and a set of twin newborn babies. He also retrieved 12 bodies from the Indian Airlines Colony at Kalina in west suburban Mumbai during the floods.
Kadam was suspended Feb 15 after EOW sleuths stumbled upon his 'complicity in the scam'. It was found that the police official had flown to Bihar and Uttar Pradesh on tickets obtained by the prime accused in the scam, where stolen credit card data was used for purchases.
'Kadam has been booked for cheating, hatching a criminal conspiracy and for harbouring offenders. He has been remanded in police custody till April 21,' Additional Commissioner of Police - Sadanand Date told IANS Tuesday.
'His arrest has thrown more light in the case. Apart from purchase of airline tickets with stolen credit card data, the gang of scamsters had also used the information for some real estate dealings in the city,' Date said.
The alleged prime conspirator Sameer Kasam Sheikh was arrested April 6. Sheikh was a police 'informer' and well known to Kadam, Date added.
Preliminary investigations revealed that Kadam had travelled on tickets that he knew were purchased through fraudulent credit card transactions.
Besides, Kadam made payments amounting to Rs.10 million in real estate dealings using the credit cards data. He also transferred huge sums of money through this stolen data to the account of a charitable trust floated by him.
'He not only knew the main accused, but allegedly passed on credit card applications and photocopies from some of the other accused to Sheikh.'
Among the accused are two BPO employees and several staffers of reputed restaurants, retail outlets and malls. All are charged with passing on credit card data to Sheikh, the scam's mastermind.
'Kadam also paid for his mobile phone bills and electricity bills using credit cards of other people.'
The fraud came to light in January after Kingfisher Airlines lodged a complaint with the EOW on Dec 21, 2006, regarding large-scale fraudulent booking of online tickets. Most of the credit cards used for transactions were from ICICI Bank card owners.
The gang had purchased around 15,000 airline tickets online, worth nearly Rs.140 million, 'misusing' stolen credit card information from hotels and malls. They had intercepted details of 15,225 credit cards.
The accused got hold of credit card numbers and the customer verification value - codes on the cards and then logged onto websites of leading private airlines that issued email confirmations of bookings.
They then took printouts of the confirmation that could be exchanged for a boarding pass or ticket and then sold them to unsuspecting customers at lower prices.
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