Four persons of well-to-do families arrested for credit card racket

With the arrest of four persons the special detection squad of superintendent of police headed by PSI Prakash attached to Mangalore Rural police station has been able to break through credit card racket. Among the four arrested persons the police have arrested the district NSUI president Tejaswi Rai. on October 19, 2008 the accused had purchased five mobile phones worth Rs 1.01 lakh from Span Telecom using fake credit cards.

The four accused are Tejaswi Raj (27) of Hat Hill, Lady Hill, Mangalore, Muhammad Riyas (25) of Melkar in Bantwal taluk, Abdul Majid (34) of Attavar, Mangalore and Sajid of Farnagipete, Mangalore, all from the well-to-do families. Riyas is the son of a forest department official; Majid is a partner in a gold jewellery firm, and Raj the district head of NSUI. The four accused were arrested while they were traveling in a car near Mahavir Circle on the outskirts of the city, and handed over to jurisdictional Mangalore South police station personnel.

According to a released statement by the police, it has information about the accused having used fake credit cards in other places in the city as well and the same is being verified. It is believed the accused carried out credit card racket to fund their luxurious and extravagant lifestyles.

The police was able to track the accused by a close examination of the video records, recorded in the closed circuit television camera installed at mobile stores when they did purchasing of mobile phones using fake credit cards. Prakash informed police is looking for more persons suspected to be involved in this racket and efforts are being made to arrest them. Meantime the four accused have been remanded to police custody up to July 3.