A new modus operandi of skimming by fraudsters was detected by the city police with the arrest of three men in Kanathur police station limits.
The gang allegedly collected card details from hackers on the dark web for a payment and later used them on blank cards.
The police were acting on complaints in which the complainants stated that cash had been withdrawn from their bank accounts unauthorisedly. Deputy Commissioner of Police, Adyar, V. Vikraman constituted a special team to trace the gang involved in this.
Following continuous surveillance, the special team nabbed Lala Chandan, 32, of Kakkan Colony, Praveen Kishore, 30, of K.K. Nagar in Tiruchi and Sikkander Badusha, 37, of Begampet, Dindigul. The police also seized skimmer devices and cards from them.
The police said the prime accused Lala Chandan and his associates were arrested by the Central Crime Branch of the Coimbatore city police in 2017. He came out on bail and failed to attend court proceedings. He was reported to be absconding since then and was working in spas across several places in the country.
He and his associates continued to indulge in stealing card details of customers visiting spas and petrol bunks using skimmer devices. They downloaded the details on blank cards and withdrew the money from ATMs.
“During interrogation, the accused said they were not able to access details of cards at ATMs or any other places since they are chip-based. Now, they adopted a new modus operandi through which they procured details of cards from the hackers on the dark web and later used blank cards for withdrawing the cash,” said a senior police officer.
