Bangalore, Oct. 25: A former bank employee used 92 credit cards to run up dues of over Rs 6 crore in possibly the country’s largest such deceptions.

Morris D’Souza was arrested yesterday.

The police had detained D’Souza earlier after complaints from the banks that had issued the cards to him as well as from the outlets where he had made the purchases.

The 28-year-old furnished fake documents when he applied for the cards. Once these were sent to him, the business management graduate made purchases, paid the minimum amount due — usually 5 per cent for most banks in India — in the first two months and shifted houses.

Three of his accomplices, who helped him procure false papers, were also arrested. Four two-wheelers, 20 mobile handsets, a dozen telephones, SIM cards, cash and ornaments were recovered from him. The police believe these were purchased with the cards that had been taken from various nationalised and private banks.

It took investigators a week to track all his transactions. They suspect D’Souza, familiar with the ways of the business because of his stint with the cards division of a nationalised bank, had more such cards he might have used and then thrown away during his year-long trickery.

During interrogation, D’Souza admitted he had a penchant “for a fast life”. While working, he found that card agents were under a lot of pressure to process applications and in their hurry, often overlooked crucial details. D’Souza used the laxity in the checks to fudge his own personal information, addresses and photographs.

Owning multiple cards isn’t illegal but having them issued on false information is. In D’Souza’s case, some cards were issued in his name, others in the names of fictitious individuals.

Officers at the Commercial Street police station, who were probing the case, were initially puzzled that in most cases, D’Souza promptly paid the first two bills — it is now apparent that he did so only to avoid early suspicion.

The lid was blown off his racket after the banks furnished the applications that had the same handwriting, suggesting that D’Souza hadn’t expected the banks to carry out such a cross-verification on their own.

“Once we started checking, his details matched. We detained him on suspicion and inquiries revealed he had run up huge bills. The Rs 6-crore dues include late-payment charges, interest and value of purchases,” an officer said.