The police suspect that gangs of foreign nationals are increasingly getting into the “lucrative” field of specialising in skimming bank account details from ATM users and using the information to generate duplicate cards.
“The arrest of three foreign nationals in one week, two from Chile and one from Uganda, for allegedly installing skimming devices in ATMs in Jayanagar, Cubbon Park and Peenya, have strengthened our suspicions,” said a senior police officer.
The officer said that as many as 1,186 cases related to skimming have been reported to the cybercrime police since January this year. It is yet to be established how many have been perpetuated by local and international gangs. “Every time we solve one case and make arrests, a new gang emerges,” he said.
In one of the more recent cases, the Tilak Nagar police, with the help of an executive of a cash management firm, caught Angelo Manuel Venegas Briones, 26, and his associate Gonzalo Rafael Monje Valenzuela, 30, at an ATM in Jayanagar last Sunday when they returned to take out the skimming devices they had allegedly installed at the centre.
According to the police, the men confessed that they came to Bengaluru a month ago on tourist visas and hooked up with a Chilean gang that operates here.
“They were given the task of identifying old models of ATMs and kiosks with no guards. They were then instructed to install skimming machine and pin camera pointing to the keyboard of the ATM to record a user’s PIN number,” said a senior police officer.
At the end of the day, the men would recover the device and hand them over to senior gang members. “In return, they were paid and provided with accommodation,” the officer added.
The kingpins of the racket are still at large and efforts are on to track them down. The police have approached the Foreigners Regional Registration Office for information.
Another case involved Ugandan national Raymond Lubega, who was caught while retrieving a skimming device at an ATM at T. Dasarahalli on Thursday. “In both cases, the accused targeted ATMs run by a well-known public sector bank that was yet to update all its machines,” said the police.
