New Delhi: The Delhi Police busted a gang and arrested five people for duping banks of over Rs 50 lakh by fraudulently using details of 95 celebrities, including MS Dhoni, Abhishek Bachchan, Sonam Kapoor and others.
According to an ANI report, the Shahdara district police said the accused allegedly used fake pan cards with names of various celebrities and also got credit cards issued in their names to dupe banks.
"The accused allegedly duped banks of over Rs 50 lakh by fraudulently using details of celebrities like MS Dhoni, Abhishek Bachchan, Sonam Kapoor, Sachin Tendulkar, Saif Ali Khan, Hritik Roshan, Alia Bhatt, Shilpa Shetty & others," said DCP Shahdara Rohit Meena.
"Arrested accused forged Govt IDs of 95 Celebrities & Eminent persons to dupe banks of over Rs 50 Lakh. The loophole is in documentation & backend verification which needs to be upgraded. All accused have good IT knowledge", Chhayya Sharma, Joint CP, Eastern Range told ANI.
According to officials, the cards were issued from Pune-based fintech startup 'One Card'. The accused used the details and duped banks of over Rs 50 lakhs, IANS reported.
The accused were identified as Puneet, Mohd Asif, Sunil Kumar, Pankaj Mishra and Vishwa Bhaskar Sharma.
On interrogation, it was revealed that they used to get GST details of these celebrities from Google.
"They were very well aware that the first two digits of GSTIN are state code and the next 10 digits are PAN numbers. Since the celebrities' date of birth is available on Google, these two — PAN and date of birth — complete the PAN details," said an official privy to investigation.
They got the PAN cards remade fraudulently by putting their own pictures on them so that during video verification, their looks match the photo available on their PAN/Aadhaar card.
"The accused used to apply for credit cards and during video verification, they were asked questions related to their financial activities which they answered easily as they had got all such details from CIBIL," the official added.