Anuj Kumar Pal (24) alias Sanjay Singh, who defrauded South Asia’s largest e-commerce company, Avenues India Pvt Ltd, of Rs 15 lakh in 2004, tried to dupe the company a second time in November. But fate held something else in store for him.

Modus operandi
In February 2004, the accused under the assumed name Sanjay Singh approached the Santacruz office of Avenues India Pvt Ltd with an application for the company’s global e-merchant.

“Acceptance of his application authorised him to link his website www.theindianhotels.net to this payment gateway and obtain necessary authorisation and clearance from credit card and banking institutions within minutes. This, in turn, allowed him to transact and accept payments online,” said Vishwas Patel, CEO of Avenues India Pvt Ltd.

Patel added that within a month, the accused used fictitious credit cards to cheat Avenues absconded.

Try, try and fail
In November 2005, Singh tried to cheat the company of Rs 1 lakh but failed and went underground. But the determined scamster did not give up and went to collect his payment for his work as an e-merchant from Avenues, on Friday. But the staff recognised Anuj and handed him over to the police.
Detection officer Ashok Sawant said the breakthrough was first achieved when a chit was sent by Singh to a woman at the office, asking her to destroy the credit cards, which was intercepted.

Credit cards found
Senior police inspector Kishor Patil said 26 credit cards, all bearing fictitious names, were found from Singh’s flat in Evershine Nagar, Malad (E).