Odishatv Bureau
Bangalore: With the arrest of five persons of a private charitable trust, police here today claimed to have unearthed a major credit card fraud involving transfer of Rs 15.68 crore from foreign countries.

"The four fraudulently transferred funds to Salve Regina Charitable Trust between July 1 and August 13, 2010, from credit card holders, mostly from the USA and other foreign countries," DGP (CID) Shankar Bidari told reporters here.

Those arrested recently include the Treasurer, the Trustee, the Secretary and a man who designed the website to facilitate fraudulent transactions, he said. President of the Trust, a woman, was arrested on October 26 and remanded to police custody till October 29, Bidari said.

He said investigations revealed these persons transferred money from 995 credit cards of foreign nationals to their trust account through e-commerce gateway after downloading card details from a website.

The five also prepared fake bank deposit receipts by using computers to lure people to deposit money with them, he said. The trust, which took up programmes for the disabled and old-aged, had obtained exemption under section 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961, Bidari said.

Bidari said police seized documents on purchase of 11 properties worth Rs nine crore in Bangalore East by the Trust President in the name of the organisation, besides three four-wheelers and a car.

"We also seized hard disks and laptops and analysed calls made by them and are verifying their bank accounts," he said. Police also froze an account of the Trust in which they had deposited Rs two crore, Bidari said. He said the trust is being prosecuted for violating FCRA provisions as it had not credited all foreign contributions to the designated SBI account, as per rules.

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