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| Electronic equipment bought by the duo at Laxmisagar police station. Telegraph picture |
Bhubaneswar, Jan. 3: An engineering student and his father were arrested today for buying electronic gadgets online by using ATM card numbers of others.
The modus operandi of the duo was to remember the ATM card numbers and passwords by observing people inside ATM counters and using those later to place orders online.
The accused — Biswajit Jena, 22, and Budhi Baman Jena, 45 — hail from Puri district.
While Biswajit is a third-year electrical engineering student of a private engineering college in Khurda, his father owns a food stall in Bhubaneswar.
Police had also recovered electronic gadgets, including laptops and mobile sets, worth Rs 2.5 lakh from the accused.
“They have shopped for Rs 20 lakh during the last four months by using ATM card numbers of others. So far, 20 such transactions have been identified,” said a senior police officer.
The duo had even bought toothpaste and bathing soaps online. The matter came to in light after a businessman lodged a complaint with the Laxmisagar police station that his debit card numbers had been used for an online transaction of Rs 1.5 lakh. “Biswajit used to observe people visiting the ATM counters very closely and memorise the numbers they used key in. At times, he even saved the numbers in his mobile phone,” said a cop.
Loan Fraud
Laxmisagar police today detained a person for allegedly cheating a person and taking a loan on the basis of land patta of the complainant and forging his signature.
The person identified as Ashish Nayak had taken the land record of the complainant, Anant Charan Swain, in 2010 promising him a bank loan of Rs 30 lakh and sharing half of the loan amount with him.
“He had promised to repay the loan amount, but later never met me. But later the bank officials approached me to repay the loan of Rs 54 lakh,” said the complainant Swain.
The police said that Ashish after getting the land document had forged the signature of Swain and got a loan of Rs 54 lakh from a nationalised bank.
