E-ticket cheat held

MUMBAI: When film producer Priti Sapru complained to the police about her credit card details being misused for online purchases, she wouldn't have guessed that she was the latest victim of a gang notorious for e-ticketing fraud.
The Versova police have arrested Sameer Kasam Shaikh, the mastermind of last year's Rs 13.47-crore Kingfisher e-ticketing scam, for cheating Sapru (a producer of Punjabi films who had acted in Hindi flicks earlier) and buying two air tickets fraudulently using confidential details on her credit card. Shaikh is currently in police custody and will be produced before a metropolitan court in Andheri on Tuesday.
The modus operandi was to log on to the websites of leading private airlines and use the card details to book tickets. "The details were mostly obtained from some restaurant, mall or petrol pump attendants who swipe customers' cards at the time of payments The accused had shared a part of the money earned with those who worked in these establishments and noted the VCC code (the additional three digits at the end of the number printed on the signature strip in the rear portion of a card). The accused would thus have access to an individual's card number, its expiry date and most importantly, the VCC code," a police officer said.
06/05/08 Nitasha Natu/Times of India

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Categories: Kingfisher May 2008, Y 2008