Crime Branch officers have raised concerns over the bank details collected by the accused recently arrested in the card cloning racket.
Earlier this month, the data seized from the accused had the banking details of customers, including PIN numbers. Investigating officers said such details can only be collated after months of stealing data.
The Property Cell of the Crime Branch over the past week has arrested six accused who allegedly cloned debit and credit cards, and siphoned money through ATM withdrawals or transactions using Point Of Sale machines. The accused, who have been active for six to seven years, are suspected to have made crores of rupees through the racket.
The team of Crime Branch officers that raided the Reay Road residence of arrested accused Kolawole Hakim (48) found documents of card details in his laptop. An officer said, “The first point of concern was that Mr. Hakim had data of nearly 600 people in his laptop. Secondly, the data was extensive and organised in columns, with each column containing details like the card holder’s name, card number, CVV number and PIN number.”
During his interrogation, Mr. Hakim allegedly said that he obtained the data in bulk from suppliers who operated on the dark net. He said the suppliers would charge in U.S. dollars for the data, and the price would fluctuate depending on the dollar’s value. The Crime Branch is concerned about how the suppliers obtained the data in the first place.
The Property Cell is writing to all banks concerned to alert their customers about cards being compromised, and to inform the police about suspicious transactions. The police are probing if the data was obtained by hacking the banks’ databases.
The officer said, “A current favourite among scamsters is to recruit attendants at petrol pumps on busy roads. They are taught to deftly swipe the customer’s card twice, once in the pump’s POS machine and then in a small card reader concealed in their hands, while pretending to be facing issues with the machine. The attendants try to hurry up the customers as they enter the PIN numbers, distracting them and enabling the attendants to pick the PIN number as they type it.”
He said such gangs sell the details to groups on the dark net, and they put together the data and sell them in bulk. He said, “The dark net offers anonymity, making suppliers hard to trace. We might seek the help of cyber crime experts.”