Over the past 45 days, several Romanian nationals have been nabbed in Hyderabad, Goa, Gurugram, Kolkata and Mumbai for committing similar offences and the police suspect that it could be a mass skimming racket against foreigners in India. However, those detained here seemed to have targeted foreign bank accounts.

The accused nabbed here were identified as George Sorici (37) and Nicolai Ciumpileac (35) of Romania who reached here on Saturday and had booked return tickets on December 3. They were staying in a hotel at Sholinganallur. 

Police said the two were butchers and were hired by the kingpins in England. “The two were sent to Indonesia to collect the non-coded cards and encoders. From Indonesia, they came to Chennai,” said police. 

It was the suspicion of the staff at a bank branch at Madipakkam that led to the capture of the two Romanians part of the international phishing network. They had reached India with the database containing the bank credentials of Canadian, French and German nationals.

When they grew suspicious of the duo’s movements, the staff alerted the police, who secured them and seized 27 non-coded cards, foreign currency of different countries, Rs 65,000, an iPhone, iWatch, iPhone tab, and a magnetic strip reader from them. As they did not speak much English, help of the Central Crime Branch was sought.

George Sorici and Nicolai Ciumpileac were sent here with the debit and credit card details of foreign nationals, police said. 

“Notorious Romanian bank fraudsters Vasile Mihai and Alex Ionita, who now reside in England, hired the duo and gave them the database of bank credentials of citizens from Canada, France and Germany. They reached Indonesia and arrived in Chennai on a tourist visa,” police said.

They were remanded in judicial custody on Monday, but would again be taken into custody by the CCB for further interrogation.

According to police, the laws in those foreign countries favour victims if their money is stolen in a foreign country even on cyberspace, and insurance firms have to compensate them in 24 hours. The criminal network’s plan was to send their operators to various Indian cities to loot money from foreigners’ accounts, police said.

Their targets seem to be foreign nationals, though they would be interrogated on whether they got details of Indian bank accounts, they added.

Chandigarh: Three Romanians - Attila Tuhos, Miclea Lecian Lonut and Paraschiv George Aletandru - were arrested for card-cloning with skimmer devices in ATMs in August

Kolkata: In the same month, Romanians Adrian Liview and Cornel Constantian were arrested by a Special Investigation Team from Indore.

Police also arrested Nana, the alleged kingpin of the gang, when he was about to flee to Nepal

Goa: Emanoil Pioj and Vasile Loredan Sipos were arrested from a star hotel in Maharashtra by Goa police after a three-day chase that ended on September 29

Mumbai: Carayvan Mariyan (51) of Romania was arrested by Mumbai police in Vikhroli on November 15.

As many as 60 cards with PIN written on them and Rs 3.70 lakh were seized from him