Credit card fraud in Mumbai: Two more arrested in Pune, 50 debit cards and five skimmers recovered

Mumbai city news: Three others had been held before this. The arrest of the two waiters takes the tally to five.

The Bandra police arrested two men working as waiters in small hotels at Saswad in Pune this week for allegedly stealing credit and debit card details of customers through skimmers and providing it to their accomplices in Mumbai.

One of the accused would withdraw money from ATMs using cloned cards. (HT)

Three others had been held before this. The arrest of the two waiters takes the tally to five. They ran an intercity gang, which stole card details to make duplicate ones. They used these cloned cards to withdraw money from ATMs. The police recovered five skimmers and 50 cloned ATM cards from them. A laptop with a software to clone the cards has also been seized.

Deputy commissioner of police (Zone IX) Paramjit Dahiya told HT, “We suspect that the accused duped several people. We are trying to find more evidence against them.”

Explaining the modus operandi, an official from Bandra police said, “Three of them worked as waiters. One was a waiter at a bar in Santacruz. Many customers gave away their card details and pin codes to him. In some cases, he swiped the card on the skimmer and observed the pin code as the customers typed it on the keypad.”

One of the accused would withdraw money from ATMs using cloned cards. His arrest led to the second accused who cloned the cards. They then nabbed the waiter, who provided the card details, from a Santacruz bar. The three are in police custody till June 27, while the two arrested from Pune have been remanded in custody till July 1.

A cyber expert said, “People should never hand over their card while paying. They should swipe it on the machine themselves and cover the keypad while typing the code to ensure that no one else sees it.”