5 cyber criminals arrested for using PAN details of 95 celebrities for credit card fraud

New Delhi: Five cybercriminals have been arrested for obtaining the PAN card details of 95 prominent celebrities, including Bollywood actor Abhishek Bachchan and former Indian cricket team captain MS Dhoni, and issuing credit cards in their names, an official said on Friday .

Officials say the cards were issued by Pune-based fintech startup One Card. The accused used the details and deceived banks from over 50 lakhs

Some of the other celebrities whose names and details were used by the scammers included Shilpa Shetty, Madhuri Dixit, Emraan Hashmi, Saif Ali Khan, Sachin Tendulkar, Alia Bhatt, Sonam Kapoor, Hritik Roshan, among others.

The defendants were identified as Puneet, Mohd Asif, Sunil Kumar, Pankaj Mishar and Vishwa Bhaskar Sharma.

Joint Commissioner of Police (Eastern Range), Chhayya Sharma, said the defendants forged government IDs of 95 celebrities and significant figures in order to dupe banks with over Rs 50,000.

“The gap is in the documentation and backend verification that needs to be updated. All of the accused have good IT skills,” the chief official said.

Upon interrogation, it turned out that they had obtained GST details of these celebrities from Google.

“You were well aware that the first two digits of the GSTIN are state codes and the next 10 digits are PAN numbers. Since the celebrity’s date of birth is available on Google, these two – PAN and date of birth – complete the PAN details,” said an official insider of the investigation.

“They fraudulently recreated the PAN cards by placing their own images on them so that during video review what they looked like matched the photo available on their PAN/Aadhaar card.

“The defendants applied for credit cards earlier and during the video review they were asked questions about their financial activities, which they easily answered since they had received all these details from CIBIL,” the officer added.

-IANS