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Bulgarian national held on ATM card cloning charge

Assistant Commissioner of Police (CTF) M. Mahendra addressing the media in Visakhapatnam on Saturday.

Assistant Commissioner of Police (CTF) M. Mahendra addressing the media in Visakhapatnam on Saturday.  

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₹13 lakh in cash, foreign currency seized

A 30-year-old Bulgarian national was arrested by the City Task Force (CTF) and the Cyber Crime Police here on Saturday on the charges of cloning bank ATM cards of foreign individuals and withdrawing cash from various bank accounts.

The police recovered 76 cloned Master and VISA ATM cards and another 160 cards which are yet to be cloned from the arrested, Valkanov Miroslav Andreanov. A sum of ₹13 lakh in cash and foreign currency of 2,000 dollars were also seized from him.

Modus operandi

Explaining the modus operandi, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP-CTF) M. Mahendra told the media that the accused receives confidential information of the ATM cards such as card number, name, expiry date, CVV, ATM pin from the kingpins who live in foreign countries. The latter allegedly get information of ATM cards through ‘skimming’ (The fraud in which confidential information is stolen either making use of technology or manually) and forward it to the accused who clones the cards and withdraws cash.

According to the police official, the accused reached Kolkata on January 31 this year on a tourist VISA, where he met a few persons who arranged him a laptop, card cloning machine, mobile SIM card and blank ATM cards. The kingpins promised 20 % commission on total money he steals from ATMs. After reaching Visakhapatnam on February 3, he started making duplicate cards and withdrawing cash.

“Since then he withdrew cash of ₹13 lakh from banks located at the places like Ram Nagar, Jagadamba junction, Diamond Park. He also got 2,000 USD in exchange. He was staying in star hotels,” Mr. Mahendra said.

The ACP also said that during their raid on a star hotel where the accused was caught, they recovered the data of ATM cards belonging to over 1,000 foreign nationals.

According to Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP-Zone I) M. Ravindranath Babu, the accused, who came to Visakhapatnam on a tourist visa, was monitored and his movement was found to be suspicious.

Legal advice

Mr. Ravindranath Babu said that they would take a legal advice in the case and also contact the Bulgarian Embassy.

A case under Section 65 and 66 of C&D IT Act 2000-2008 was registered.

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