Fraudsters nabbed after five years, 30-40 crore stolen from foreigners
The crime branch on Friday arrested five people who managed to clone 65 debit/credit cards belonging to foreign nationals. The money was withdrawn from the card via 59 different card swiping machines. According to crime branch officials, the accused approached different shopkeepers and gained their trust. They then swiped these cards on the machines used by the shopkeepers and gave them a certain cut of the stolen money.
"This has been going on since 2013, the victims are foreign nationals and are mostly from China and USA." said the crime branch officials. One of the arrested was a shopkeeper from Andheri whose swipe machine was used. The data required to clone these cards was purloined from various foreign banks. The names of the banks have not yet been revealed, it is also unclear how these 5 accused managed to get hands on such sensitive data.
Although, it is confirmed that the con was conducted across India at different tourist destinations where the footfalls of different foreign nationals is in majority. The accused had successfully gained confidence of different shopkeepers mainly from Mumbai, Bengaluru, Goa, Jaipur, Himachal Pradesh, Ludhiana and Chandigarh. They then convinced these shopkeepers to help them out with the fraud by giving them a cut.
The crime branch officials further said, "The accused had the information of the closing timings of different banks. The card was swiped only moments before the banking operations were officially shut. Hence, the card was blocked but any action was taken on the next day." The officials are not yet aware of the number of victims but they claim that the number can go above 1000.”
The amount stolen by this gang of 5 who planned and carried out the operations can go up to 30-40 crores. The officials also stated, "There are no known victims as of now. Most of them get heavily compensated by the banks if they are not at fault and hence they are reluctant to lodge a complaint"
The police have seized 65 debit/credit cards, 59 swipe machines, two laptops, one card cloning machine and check books of various banks. The 5 accused are Zuber Sayyed (30), Hasan Shaikh(40), Nayeem Shaikh(30), Abu Bakr(45) and Subodh Sharma(45) who have now been arrested and are booked under 433, 420, 467, 468, 479, 34 and 120(b) of the IPC along with section 66 of the IT Act.