Mason Dupes American Express Of Rs 15 Lakh With Forged Credit Cards, Arrested

New Delhi: Delhi Police have arrested a 30-year-old mason for allegedly duping over Rs 15 lakh from American Express, a multinational financial services company, in the last six months.

Police said the accused, Shakeel Alam, procured four credit cards from the company by producing fake identity documents and used them to spend Rs 15.39 lakh. Shakeel also submitted forged cheques for payment of bills, but the cheques later got bounced.

According to Cyber Cell investigators, the accused was a Class-X dropout and his second wife had taught him to use credit cards.

Explaining Shakeel’s modus-operandi, a senior police officer said he used to collect the identification documents of unknown people through the internet. He used to edit these documents and produced them for identification to get credit cards issued through online applications.

The accused rented houses in affluent colonies for a month after submitting fake IDs and used the same new address for getting the credit card issued. His relatives also stayed with him and he left the flat after receiving the credit card, the officer said.

During investigation, police found that he has more than seven bank accounts connected with each other to rotate the amount to improve his credit score.

The officer said Shakeel had been absconding after he learnt that a police complaint was filed against him. He later applied for anticipatory bail, but it was rejected. Police finally managed to track him down and arrest him with the help of technical surveillance.