Police tracking man behind cloned credit card syndicate

The city police are tracking a man who, they say, is the kingpin of international debit and credit card scams that are rampant here.

The extent of his operations came to light after the Cottonpet police recently arrested Nadeem Shariff (30) and Afsar Rahman (33) who were found swiping cloned cards with a fake firm.

The police had also recovered a laptop and a POS (point of sale machine) from the men.

However, the police realised that Shariff and Rahman are only foot soldiers, one of thousands who work for their “master”, the brain behind the operation.

The police are unwilling to divulge his name, but said that he was no longer in Bengaluru, or, for that matter in India.

“He left the country, but efforts are on to track him down,” a senior police officer said.

Going by the investigation, the police suspect that there are around 2,000 men working on this racket across India.

The accused would buy the details on the international debit and credit card from a website. Using the details he would clone the card and starts swiping the card in the fake firm.

As the card-holders are mostly tourists, they would file a complaint with their bank and get a refund in the form of insurance. The banks also would not pursue the case, as individually the amount swiped is never a large sum.

“The accused cashed in on the weak spots in the system, and have been doing so for the past five years,” said a police official.

According to the police Shariff and Rahman were arrested in Jaipur in 2011 in a similar case. But they were out on bail and came to Bengaluru to set up their base soon after.

Police teams in other parts of the country are also gathering evidence that point to the scale of the operation.