Driver held for duping employer of Rs 4.44 lakh using his ATM card details

New Delhi: A driver was arrested here on Sunday for allegedly duping his employer of Rs 4.44 lakh by fraudulently making online purchases using his ATM card details, police said on Sunday.

The accused was identified as Sandesh Chaudhary, a resident of Lal Kuan, Ghaziabad, they said.

Mahesh Kumar Sharma (55), in his complaint, said that a few months ago he received a message on his phone regarding a transaction of Rs 33,068 from his savings account, police said.

When he obtained his account statement, he found out that between March to June, 18 transactions amounting to Rs 4,44,630 were done from his account which he was unaware of, Deputy Commissioner of Police (northeast), Joy Tirkey said.

Sharma reported the matter to the cyber northeast police station and on August 8, an FIR was registered in the matter, he said.

During the investigation, it was found that Shama, who is the vice principal of a government school, often sought his driver Chaudhary’s help for online transactions and other tasks but due to his suspected activities from some time, Sharma fired him from the job in June, police said.

”We later checked with the bank and an e-commerce website and found that the fraudster had purchased various items including 14 mobile phones, one LED TV, one refrigerator, one washing machine, Bluetooth Speakers and one wooden TV unit from a website,” DCP Tirkey said.

Chaudhary was arrested on Sunday, he said.

During interrogation, Chaudhary told police that he obtained the ATM number of the complainant for online payment. To obtain OTP, he used to take Sharma’s phone on some pretext and after successful payments, he deleted all the SMSs related to transactions, police said.

”The accused took the deliveries near some famous landmark located around his rented house. On his instance, many expensive items, including mobile phones, fridge, washing machine, LED, TV unit and other valuables were recovered from his house,” the DCP said.