The police here on Thursday arrested six members of an inter-State gang involved in credit card fraud involving Rs. 2.75 crore.
Announcing their arrest, Inspector General of Police Tomin J. Thachankari has said that the members of the gang were arrested in connection with the case of purchase of gold ornaments worth Rs. 2.45 lakh from a jewellery shop here using a fake credit card a few days ago.
The arrested included Rohith Prajapathi, Naseer Abdul Syed, Amith Bhatia, Junai Pasha Syed and Sudheer Yadav (from Mumbai) and Abbas from Uduma in Kasaragod. There are two Nigerians in the gang who are still at large, Mr. Thachankari said, adding that the Interpol would be informed of them.
The IG said that the police also seized from them equipment used for producing fake credit cards. The investigation revealed that the fraudsters had purchased ornaments and other items worth Rs. 2.75 crore using the fake cards in jewellery and textile shops in Mumbai, Bangalore and here. The arrested are one of the six suspected groups of credit card fraudsters in the country, he said.
The IG said the gang had been using imported blank credit cards from China and embossed 16-digit numbers. They collected data belonging to various credit card holders from ATM booths and by hacking computers. They also sourced secret data from third parties. They cloned the data on to the magnetic strip of the credit cards using special software, he said. The credit cards of foreign banks in the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, Europe and other countries were used by the gang, Mr. Thachankari added.
