Thiruvananthapuram: The cyber police have arrested a key member of the gang involved in defrauding
foreign tourists at
Varkala by duplicating their credit cards.
The police identified the arrested as Jinto Joy, 34 a resident of Balikulam, Chalakudy taluk, Thrissur. He was arrested from Delhi by cyber police team led by inspector N Biju.
According to police, the gang centred their operations in Varkala and their main targets were foreign tourists. The gang led by Jinto Joy ran a money exchange centre at Varkala. They used a skimming device to copy
credit card details of tourists and then obtained PIN of credit card using hidden cameras. The gang made fake credit cards and did transactions using the cards at Bengaluru and Coimbatore.
Francois Mousis, a French tourist was the first victim of the fraud. He had last used his credit card in Varkala on Janaury 16, 2018. He received a message on his phone alerting about a transaction on January 19, when he was in Varkala.
Francois filed a complaint with crime branch IG S Sreejith and cyber police registered a case and began the probe. The probe that lasted for nearly three months led to the arrest of the accused.
The police had issued a look out circular against Jinto Joy who had moved out of the country following the fraud.
The investigation team included inspector N Biju, sub-inspectors G S Ratheesh, civil police officer B S Binu, cyber expert and senior civil police officer Sunil Kumar, civil police officers Aneesh Dominique and woman civil police officer Shobha.
