Mumbai: The Mumbai Police Crime Branch has busted a pan-India card cloning racket where debit and credit cards were being cloned using stolen data, after which money was siphoned off from accounts through unauthorised transactions.
The accused include a Nigerian national who would obtain card details from hackers and a Coimbatore-based man who would assemble point of sale (POS) machines and data skimmers and supply them all over the country.
The lid was blown off the racket after the property cell of the Crime Branch was instructed to conduct inquiries into an FIR registered with the Nagpada police earlier this year.
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The complainant, who works with the merchant navy, lost ₹2.16 lakh in June in multiple unauthorised transactions, while he was in Greece aboard a ship. He registered an FIR with the Nagpada police on June 12.
“We traced the location of the POS machine to Chiplun and arrested Kasturiram Solanki (30) earlier this month. We then traced the account to which the money was diverted to Rajasthan and arrested Madankumar Sundesa (33). The results of their interrogation led us to four other accused, identified as Ramesh Chandran (31) from Coimbatore, Deepak Gehlot from Bhayander, Chandansingh Rao from Rajasthan, and Kolawole Hakim (48) from Reay Road,” a Crime Branch officer said.
The officer said Mr. Hakim would buy credit and debit card details of Indian nationals from hackers on the dark net, which would then be supplied to the other accused. The details would be used to clone the cards of the victims, after which their accounts would be cleaned out.
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“Inquiries also indicate that Mr. Hakim was in touch with gangs which collect credit and debit card data using skimmers, which are installed at ATM kiosks. We have recovered card details of over 600 people from him,” the officer said.
Mr. Chandran, who is a registered retailer of POS machines, would also provide POS and skimmer machines to gangs across the country.
The police have recovered 97 cloned cards, along with laptops, card readers, writer machines, and data collection machines from the gang.
“Inquiries indicate that the gang has been active for around seven years, and they are believed to have made crores of rupees. We have started collecting data about such cases from various commissionerates to check how many of the offences were committed by the accused,” the officer said.
The accused have been charged with cheating under the Indian Penal Code and various sections of the Information Technology Act. They have been remanded in police custody till October 23, officers said.