HSBC Bank duped by credit card fraudsters: Mumbai police

A CASE has been registered after HSBC Bank was allegedly duped of ₹12.6 million (£116,939.18) through 38 credit cards that were issued without proper verification of documents, a police official said on Wednesday.

The alleged crime came to light on Monday after the foreign bank’s vice-president (financial crime investigation) approached the Azad Maidan police station in Mumbai with a complaint, the official said.

According to the FIR, the bank detected the fraud during an analysis of the usage of the credit cards issued by it and payments received against them within the usual 45-day window.

The bank officials also found that the credit cards in question were issued through an online platform and the customers exhausted the spending limit of some of the credit cards in the first month of issuance.

About 55 cards were obtained by submitting Aadhaar and PAN numbers that were created with the help of forged documents. Of these, 38 were used to withdraw ₹12.6 million, the FIR said, citing the complaint.

Internet Protocol (IP) addresses pointed out that the online applications for the credit cards were made in Assam but the customers were shown to be residents of cities like Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi, the complaint said.

Though there were insufficient addresses on the applications, the credit cards were delivered to the applicants, the bank told the police, adding that it blocked 17 of the 55 cards after discovering the fraud.

The case has been registered under the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act against unidentified persons and a probe is underway.