Several suspects in Rs. 263 m credit card fraud go missing

By Lakmal Sooriyagoda

Several wanted suspects who were allegedly involved in the Rs. 263 million fraud by withdrawing money from foreign credit card holders through an e-commerce application service provided by a State bank in Sri Lanka have disappeared, the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) informed Court.

Filing a further investigation report in respect of the case, the CID submitted to Court that it had initiated investigations to arrest the rest of the suspects who involved in the massive fraud and found that they had fled their homes.   

Due to this international financial fraud, the State bank had suffered a loss of Rs. 263 million and 14 suspects had been charged under the Public Property Act, Prevention of Money Laundering Act, and the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provision) Act.

Meanwhile, the CID informed Colombo Fort Magistrate Kanishka Wijeratne that the production items found in the suspects’ possession including the laptop computers, hard discs and pen drives had been sent to Sri Lanka CERT for an analytical report.

The CID investigating into the incident alleged that the suspects had obtained the Internet Payment Gateway (IPG) facility from the State bank through two Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) since the end of 2011. The CID said the two NGOs had received massive amounts of money as donation from foreign credit card holders for a period of one year.

The fraud had come to light after the foreign credit card holders had complained to the credit card issuers that their money had been fraudulently withdrawn by someone without their knowledge.

In one instance, issuing a Chargeback Notice to the Sri Lankan bank with regard to Rs. 454,251, the FIA Card Services, a representative institution of the Bank of America in USA, had alleged that the relevant money transaction had taken place without its customers’ knowledge.

The CID alleged that the money transactions had taken place after preparing fake credit cards and the money in question had been deposited in the bank accounts belonging to Sahana Foundation and the Women and Children Development Foundation.

The CID alleged that due to this international fraudulent transaction, the State bank had suffered a loss of Rs. 263 million, causing severe damage to its reputation locally and internationally.

The CID informed the Colombo Fort Magistrate that it had arrested 14 suspects and held them under detention orders for further questioning.

The CID suspected that through this fraudulent transaction, a massive amount of funds could be remitted to the LTTE as well. The suspects had been detained under CID custody upon a detention order by President Mahinda Rajapaksa as the Minister of Defence.