Peerkankaranai police on Monday evening arrested three men who attempted to cheat staff of a petrol bunk in Mudichur after producing a bogus debit card.
Police said the men reached the retail outlet in Madanapuram on Mudichur Road and asked the attendants to dispense petrol for Rs.500.
They then handed over a debit card and requested the staff to give them Rs.4,000 cash. They told the staff that they could transfer the money to the account of the outlet by swiping the debit card and also offered them a 20 per cent commission for this. The accused told the staff that they were in a hurry.
ADVERTISEMENT
However, an alert staff at the petrol bunk realised that the three men had cheated a colleague in the same outlet three months ago in a similar fashion. Then the three men had fled away with the cash even before the staff could swipe the card.
After establishing that the three men had tried to cheat them, the staff gave them a sound thrashing and informed police.
A police team reached the spot and took the men to the Peerkankaranai station and recovered a laptop and a number of debit cards from them. The car in which they were travelling was also seized.
ADVERTISEMENT
The laptop had details of several debit cards. A skimmer machine, used by the fraudsters to decode, download or obtain the personal identification number (PIN) of debit cards was also seized from them. A case was registered and on Tuesday morning, they were handed over to Central Crime Branch personnel of the city police.
Investigations are on to ascertain if the three men, Ezhilarasan (24), Ravi (42) and Venkatesan (39), have links with a bigger gang nabbed by the city police a few weeks ago.