HT Digital
GUWAHATI, APR 18: The Mumbai Crime Branch has arrested five individuals from Assam for allegedly orchestrating a sophisticated credit card scam. The gang is accused of using forged documents of individuals with high CIBIL scores to fraudulently obtain credit cards, which they then maxed out.
The case, dating back to last year, began with an FIR registered in Mumbai after the gang used the identities of 55 unsuspecting individuals to procure credit cards. They ultimately withdrew ₹1.26 crore before vanishing. Acting on technical intelligence, the Crime Branch tracked the suspects to Morigaon, a town roughly 77 kilometers from Guwahati, and arrested them on Thursday.
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Senior Inspector Sadanand Yernekar of Crime Branch Unit III stated that the accused used fake documents to apply for 55 credit cards, making heavy purchases before defaulting on repayments. When banks attempted to reach the cardholders, they discovered the documents were forged, prompting the FIR.
An intensive investigation, tracing complex financial trails, led officers to Morigaon. Officials uncovered a highly organized operation: one member identified individuals with strong CIBIL scores online; another, who ran an Aadhaar center in Assam, forged Aadhaar cards using fake PAN cards. Using these counterfeit documents, other gang members applied for credit cards—and sometimes even loans.
To collect the credit cards, one of the gang members would travel to Mumbai or Delhi, providing a fake address listed on the applications. Once the cards were in hand, they would rapidly spend up to the limit before abandoning them, leaving banks unable to recover dues.
Investigators noted that Morigaon has increasingly become a hotspot for cybercrimes in the Northeast, with several gangs engaging in banking and financial frauds on a similar scale.
