Plastic money scam: 2 held for ‘cloning’ cards

A 28-year-old class 8 school dropout and his associate were arrested for cloning and fraudulently using credit and debit cards of several banks in Delhi, police said on Saturday.

A 28-year-old class 8 school dropout and his associate were arrested for cloning and fraudulently using credit and debit cards of several banks in Delhi, police said on Saturday.

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Meenu Chaudhary, DCP (northwest), said Rajesh Kumar, an ex-finance company executive residing in Shahdara and his friend Kamal, 26, who also lives in the same area, had made illegal purchases amounting to more than R10 lakh through such cloned cards till date.

Rajesh was caught red-handed while attempting to use one such cloned debit card at an ATM machine in Adarsh Nagar on July 9, the police said.

According to police, initially, the duo used to take the service of petrol pump employees who would hand over card reading machines used there.

The employee would swipe a particular customer's card on the said machine discreetly, before handing it over to Vipin who used to feed the said data on another inoperative debit/credit card with the help of a computer, police said.

Then, those cards would be used for withdrawing cash and for shopping. “Establishments where these fake cards were used are being identified. We appeal to the public to be more vigilant,” the DCP said.