In a breakthrough in the ATM fraud case, the Crime and Intelligence wing on Sunday arrested three persons from Tamil Nadu, including the brain behind the cybercrime, and seized objects worth ₹ 1 crore from them.
The police identified the arrested persons as A. Peter, a resident of Avinashi in Tirupur district, Irfan Rahman, a resident of Kolathur in Chennai and S Dhinesh, a resident of Ramanathapuram in Coimbatore.
Cybercrime case
Peter is a marine engineer and runs a travel agency in Coimbatore. Irfan, a computer science graduate who runs a travel agency in Chennai, and Dinesh a graduate in Business Administration, were associates of Peter. Dinesh has a cybercrime case registered against him by the Tamil Nadu police.
Addressing a press conference here, Senior Superintendent of Police Rahul Alwal said in the early stages of the investigation the police were under the impression that Chandruji, a resident of Muthialpet here, was the key accused.
Only after the arrest of one Abdul Samad did the police come to know that Peter was the one who introduced Chandruji to the crime.
Peter confessed to police that he purchased credit card details using bitcoin from Russian hackers and booked air tickets.
Later, he would sell them at a reduced rates to customers.
Irfan helped Peter in getting customers to buy the tickets.
During a trip to Puducherry, the three accused stayed at a resort owned by Chandruji. As their friendship grew, they informed him about the hacked details of credit card customers.
Later, all of them ventured into manufacture of PoS machines, fake ATM cards and skimmer machines and swindled crores from customers. A majority of them who were cheated are residents of U.S., Mr Alwal said.
The territorial police would inform the Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Home Affairs seeking action to identify the cheated customers.
Peter said he did business worth of ₹ 3 crore, but the magnitude of the crime would be more. The seized items include an Audi car that Peter recently bought for ₹ 84 lakh.
The police have issued a lookout notice for Chandruji who had been evading arrest since the case surfaced, the SSP said.
