In a joint operation, sleuths of Rachakonda Special Operations Team and Cyber Crime cops arrested on Friday a five-member inter-state gang on charges of cloning international credit cards.
The suspects were identified as Ayyappan (30) from Chennai, Padiga Raghavendra (32) from Ongole, Pallecherla Vamshi Krishna (25) from Kothapet, Challa Bhaskar Rao (43) from Visakhapatnam, and Sidhula Bhaskar (45) from Vanasthalipuram.
“The gang used to purchase data of foreign credit card holders from various websites, including dark web and dark net, and clone the cards before swiping them through POS machines to withdraw money,” said Rachakonda Commissioner Mahesh M. Bhagwath, adding that 16 POS machines, a laptop and other electronic gadgets were also seized.
Mr. Bhagwath said the gang, led by IT engineer Ayyappan, defrauded foreigners, mainly from USA, UK and Australia, using POS machines at various places like Hyderabad, Guntur, Kakinada and Chennai.
The amount swindled is pegged at over ₹30 lakh.
“The five men met each other through social networking sites and started to clone the cards,” he said. Ayyappan worked as a commission agent and found the earnings not-so-decent. Later, he became a member of ICQ, an instant messaging app, where he joined various groups to learn about cloning of credit cards and procured the cloning device (MSR 606) from an e-commerce website, he said..
“After getting the data, the gang used to check it on Bin Checker application, verified the details and then used to send the details to Raghavendra, who, in turn, used to write the same on empty magnetic cards by using MSR 606 magnetic card writer,” he said.
Vamshi Krishna used to collect the POS machines from different merchants through his sources by offering 20 per cent as commission on total settlement.
