Mumbai crime branch busts card cloning racket, arrests four

Mumbai Police’s crime branch arrested four people including a hotel manager for allegedly duping several people to the tune of around ₹20 lakh by cloning their debit and credit cards.

Mumbai Police’s crime branch arrested four people including a hotel manager for allegedly duping several people to the tune of around ₹20 lakh by cloning their debit and credit cards. The accused withdrew money using the cloned cards from distant places in Pune and Satara districts, so as to avoid being traced.

For representational purposes only. (HT FILE)

The arrested accused are Mohammad Faiz Choudhary, 27; Yashwant Gupta, 23; Azaruddin Ansari, 23; and Ishtiaq Jamal Khan, 22 — all residents of Goregaon and Jogeshwari. Police said the gang was operating from more than six months.

Police officers have received details of 20 victims so far and are trying to retrieve more information from the laptop of an accused.

Activities of the gang came to light when an official of a nationalised bank approached unit 9 of the crime branch in Bandra complaining about several customers being duped by online fraudsters, though they had not shared their card details with anyone.

The complainant also informed that all the victims had visited the same hotel at Powai, said a police officer.

Crime branch unit 9 then inquired with the hotel owner and learnt that he had removed Yashwant Gupta alias Sonu, manager, a few days ago after learning that Gupta skimmed customers’ debit and credit cards using a device, said inspector Nandkumar Gopale.

“We laid a trap near the hotel and managed to nab Gupta on February 17. During interrogation, Gupta said he had instructed waiters to bring customer’s credit and debit cards to him and he discreetly swapped the cards on a skimmer device” added Gopale.

He further said that he used to personally visit the customer concerned at their tables and used to see the customer enter the PIN and memorised the same, said the officer. Gupta then sold the card data to Chaudhary for ₹500 for a card. Chaudhary would then make the cards and hand them to Ansari and Khan who would travel to different places in Satara and Pune to withdraw money.