BANGALORE: The Cyber Crime Police arrested four more accused including Regina Seelan, the president of Salve Regina Charitable Trust in connection with a fraud case. The trust has been accused of withdrawing around Rs 13.3 crore from various accounts of the ICICI banks through credit cards.The accused have been identified as Regina Seelan, the president, Victor D’Souza, treasurer, Christy Solomon, Trustee and Thomas P Joseph, secretary. Another accused Selva Babu, who designed the website to facilitate the fraudulent transaction was arrested by CID in the first week of September, last year.The New Indian Express had exposed this racket on September 17, 2010.A Bangalore-based NGO, Salve Regina Charitable Trust, had cheated ICICI bank and 134 people, mostly NRIs based in USA, of Rs 15.69 crore by using their credit and debit card details. Express was the first to report about Selva Babu’s arrest on 13, September this year.Selva Babu had admitted to developing the software for stealing money through credit cards. Police said that Regina Trust had approached ICICI bank in March 2010 seeking the electronic gateway facility, which allows donors to make online donations. The Indira Nagar branch of the bank approved this on May 28, 2010, and the NGO uploaded this facility on their official website: http://src-trust.org.Soon, a few NRIs complained that they had not authorised any transaction to the NGO’s account.Maria Ruben, ICICI bank’s legal counsel, Merchant Services Division, filed a case against the trust, represented by Regina, and 25 other trustees. ICICI’s legal department tried to contact the NGO to verify the transactions, but the trustees did not respond. On September 9, 2010, on the basis of the complaint by Maria Reuben, authorized signatory of ICICI bank merchant services, Bommanahalli, a case was registered in Cyber Crime police station.The complaint mentioned that the trust had fraudulently taken an amount of Rs 15,68,00000 (15 crore and 68 lakh) in 995 fraudulent credit card transactions between July 1, and August 13, 2010. The credit card holders who were subjected to fraud were mostly persons from United States of America and other foreign countries. The trust has used Rs 11.55 crore.DGP CID Shankar M Bidari said that the investigation revealed that Regina Seelan bought 11 properties in Bangalore East Taluk, Bangalore, worth Rs 9 crore in the name of the trust.In another bank account, they had kept Rs 2 crore and the said account has also been seized.
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