A hi-tech debit card fraud with overseas links was busted by Reddiyarpalayam police on Thursday night in Puducherry. The two accused – Saravanan (32) and Veeramani (33) – were arrested in this case.
On March 3, a case was registered at Reddiyarpalaym police station on a complaint lodged by Ravindran, branch manager of Indian Bank Reddiyarpalayam Branch.
The manager’s complaint stated that cash to the tune of Rs. 80,500 from various Indian Bank customer accounts in Puducherry had been withdrawn using forged debit cards at ATMs in Nagari, Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh on February 5.Incidentally, all these customers had previously used their debit cards at the Indian Bank ATM centre at Pavazhakaranchavady, raising concerns that a skimmer fraud had taken place at this ATM.
In this regard, SSP (Law and Order) N.Gnanasambandan had instructed SP (North) Rachna Singh to form a special crime team to detect the ATM offence. Following this, under the supervision of SP (North), a crime team was formed under the leadership of T.Nagarajan, Inspector of Police, Mettupalayam Circle, and S.Ramesh, SHO, Reddiyarpalayam.
During the night patrolling on Thursday, Mr. Ramesh noticed a car parked under suspicious circumstances in front of the Indian Bank ATM on Villianur main road. On searching the car, they found a laptop, helmet, at least 30 ATM cards and some electronic machines including two to three driving licences of the same person.
Links abroad
Police interrogation of the two persons at the spot revealed that the duo hailing from a village in Dindigul were involved in a debit card cloning scam with links to Sri Lanka and Malaysia.
Saravanan had completed his sixth grade and was working as an electrician. Veeramani had quit his job as a security guard. The two accused rented a space in Pallavaram in Chennai and were operating from there.
After inquiry, a five-member SP crime team was sent to Chennai.
The police recovered nearly 30 fake Automated Teller Machines (ATM), two cars – a Swift and Hyundai i-10, one 40-inch Onida LED television, ATM card skimmer, a button camera and electronic gadgets used to forge cards. The haul was estimated to be worth about Rs 5 lakh.
Modus operandi
The police said that the modus operandi of the accused was to fix a skimmer in various ATM machines at different places and a camera above the ATM machine to record the pin numbers. Later, they would recover the data from the skimmer and connect it to the PIN number captured through the camera.
The police said that they would share this data through internet to the gang members in foreign countries, mainly Sri Lanka and Malaysia. This data was loaded into loyalty cards through a machine and these forged cards would be used as debit cards to withdraw money from other ATMs.
The accused admitted to siphoning off debit card data from customers who used the Indian Bank ATM Centre on the Villupuram main road on December 20 and subsequent withdrawal of money using the cloned cards from ATMs in Andhra Pradesh in February.
