Man spends USD 1.41 million on UK websites using SBI card with USD 200 limit: CBI

A Mumbai-resident allegedly spent USD 1.41 million (Rs 9.1 crore) on British e-commerce websites using a foreign travel card issued by the State Bank of India with a meagre spending limit of USD 200 (Rs 13,000)  prompting the CBI to register an FIR today, officials said.

The SBI had filed a complaint with the CBI in this regard alleging that its NRI Seawoods branch in Navi Mumbai had issued a Foreign Travel Cards for which the prepaid application is provided by Yalamanchili Software Exports Ltd and database support resources are provided by MPhasis, they said.

"On February 28, 2017, the Chief Operating Officer of Yalamanchili Software Exports Ltd reported the incident to the bank," the complaint said.

It came to the notice that balance in prepaid card system has been altered fraudulently for authorisation of three foreign travel cards belonging to a single individual, it said.

"The authorisations have mainly happened over e-commerce web sites of four merchants and involve around 374 transactions amounting to USD 1.41 million. These transactions have happened over a period of three months-- from November 8th, 2016 to February 12, 2017," it said.

The bank alleged that card was issued by NRI Seawoods branch on November 7, 2016 on which two more cards were issued to the card holder.

"The cards were issued to one Sandeep Kumar Raghu Poojary for USD 200. Thereafter there was no load or reload on the cards. Transactions took place in the cards from November 8, 2016 on four merchant sites as e-commerce transactions- Neteller.com, entropay, swiftvoucher and SKR Shrill.com," it said.

The bank alleged that all merchant transactions came via Visa with Merchant country code as Great Britain with the transaction and billing currency as USD.

It is suspected that while transactions happened on the prepaid card system, the balance appear to have been altered manually via the Oracle Database access and post authorisation the settlement transaction and authorisation have been deleted from the prepaid card system including the general ledger entry and so the balance sheet generated on the prepaid card system did not get any difference, the bank has alleged.

The CBI has booked Poojary and unidentified persons under charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery and violation of the Information Technology Act.