Woman remanded to police custody for cyber crime

Kolkata, Sep 2: Law caught up with a call centre employee enjoying a shopping spree with the credit card numbers of some US-based people, which she got hold of while working with a Kolkata-based BPO.

The 23-year-old woman was picked up from her James Long Sarani home in Behala yesterday and a city court remanded her to 12-day police custody.

The woman, a wannabe fashion designer, had duped some US credit card holders to the tune of 4,000 dollars by using their card numbers to make online purchases.

She had reportedly confessed to her crime but claimed that she did it for ''fun and didn't intend to cheat anyone''.

''A California-based firm, Syssoft Corporation, complained of fraudulent purchases being made through their e-commerce portal. We were also told that credit cards of US residents were being used to make payments in these cases,'' Deputy commissioner Gyanwant Singh said.

The accused, who just completed her diploma in fashion designing from NIFT, was working in a Salt Lake Sector V call centre, which handles backend operations of another e-commerce site in US.

''Her job profile involved selling Dish TV to US clients. While doing this, she gathered information about the credit card numbers of some of these clients. She then used these credit card numbers to make purchases through the portal, calcuttaweb.com,'' said a senior officer.

Using her laptop and while browsing the net in cyber cafes, she made 52 purchases, 42 of which were delivered at her home amounting to roughly Rs 1 lakh.

These included an air-conditioner, microwave, cosmetics, jewellery, sarees and even chocolates.

For detectives, tracing her was not tough. Calcuttaweb.com, which has an office in Kolkata, provided them with the details of purchases made.

''The IP addresses were all logged. Moreover, the delivery challans helped us trace her,'' an officer said.

UNI