A young couple, including the daughter of a Commonwealth Games gold medal-winning weightlifter, have been arrested for allegedly using cloned credit cards to make purchases of expensive items from a mall. Four Nigerian nationals, who allegedly were the masterminds, are absconding. While the young man had completed his
graduation and masters in business management from UK-based universities, the woman was pursuing her MBA from a prestigious institution in south Delhi.
According to the police, an assistant manager of a private bank had lodged a complaint with the Saket police saying that his credit card was used for transaction despite him getting it blocked after having lost it.
Following investigations, the couple was recently arrested at a Saket mall while allegedly trying to use the card again.
The accused — identified as Mukul Garg, 24, and his fiancee Alisha Sharma, 23, — were found to be in possession of five cloned credit cards, one “master” cloned card, seven fake IDs of the two and expensive clothes worth `70,000.
During interrogation, they told the police that they had been visiting some malls, particularly the one in Saket, in the past few days and made purchases using cloned cards and fake IDs. The police said that, some time ago, Alisha had met a Nigerian national, Kelley, at the mall, who asked her to do some shopping using a cloned credit card for his girlfriends. Kelley had three more accomplices, all Nigerian nationals.
Subsequently, Alisha also roped in Mukul in the fraud. They would get the cloned credit cards from the Nigerians and shop using fake IDs.
Investigations have also revealed that the two accused, hailing from Ludhiana, Punjab, belonged to upper middle class families. While Mukul’s father has a flourishing iron tools trade, Alisha’s father worked with the Northern Railway at a senior position and had won gold medals in weightlifting in CWG held in Macau, Auckland and Malta. The two had met at a prestigious institute in Ludhiana, where both were students. They became close friends and later decided to marry.
Efforts are on to nab the absconding Nigerian nationals. The police is also trying to ascertain whether the staff of the outlet, where the cloned cards were used, were also involved in the alleged fraud.