Five Lankans held for fake ATM card racket in India [November 29 2011]
Five Sri Lankan nationals were arrested in India today for alleged involvement in a fake ATM card racket with a nation-wide network and Indian Rs 40.4 lakh in cash and a large number of fake cards seized from them, police said.
The five, belonging to Mannar district of Sri Lanka, told police that they used the fake cards to withdraw money from ATMs with PIN numbers and other details made available by a gang based in their country. They also said they had a network throughout India.
Antony Anandan, Pratap, Syed Abudhagir, Viyakumar and Ganapathy were produced before a magistrate court here which remanded them to judicial custody, police said adding an application would be filed seeking their custody to unearth their links in other parts of the country. Police stumbled on the gang when a woman sub-inspector Lokeswari questioned Ganapathy after seeing him scratching an ATM card in front of a State Bank of India ATM centre located in an isolated place in Chokkikulam here.
During investigations, police found Ganapathy was carrying 20 ATM cards and also seized Rs.40,000 in cash. He told police they got all the details, including the PIN numbers, from a gang based in Sri Lanka. Based on information provided by him about four of his associates operating here, a team of police in plain clothes arrested them at the Ring Road when they were about to shift a big carton of currency notes withdrawn by them from various ATMs from one car to another car, police said.
They seized cash totalling Rs 40.4 lakh. Local people also assisted the police by surrounding the gang members. The busting of the gang comes close on the heels of a major ATM fraud detected by the Bank Fraud wing of the Central Crime Branch in Chennai last month. Police have arrested 15 persons in connection with the fraud in Chennai and surroundings, seized more than 1,000 fake ATM cards with which the gang had withdrawn an estimated more than Rs one crore over a period of time.
The modus operandi of the gang was to use a slim skimmer device to steal card data in ATMs which lacked security measures, including CCTV camera. Five Sri Lankan nationals were arrested here today for alleged involvement in a fake ATM card racket with a nation-wide network and Rs 40.4 lakh in cash and a large number of fake cards seized from them, police said. The five, belonging to Mannar district of Sri Lanka, told police that they used the fake cards to withdraw money from ATMs with PIN numbers and other details made available by a gang based in their country. They also said they had a network throughout India.
Antony Anandan, Pratap, Syed Abudhagir, Viyakumar and Ganapathy were produced before a magistrate court here which remanded them to judicial custody, police said adding an application would be filed seeking their custody to unearth their links in other parts of the country. Police stumbled on the gang when a woman sub-inspector Lokeswari questioned Ganapathy after seeing him scratching an ATM card in front of a State Bank of India ATM centre located in an isolated place in Chokkikulam here. During investigations, police found Ganapathy was carrying 20 ATM cards and also seized Rs.40,000 in cash.
He told police they got all the details, including the PIN numbers, from a gang based in Sri Lanka. Based on information provided by him about four of his associates operating here, a team of police in plain clothes arrested them at the Ring Road when they were about to shift a big carton of currency notes withdrawn by them from various ATMs from one car to another car, police said. They seized cash totalling Rs 40.4 lakh. Local people also assisted the police by surrounding the gang members. The busting of the gang comes close on the heels of a major ATM fraud detected by the Bank Fraud wing of the Central Crime Branch in Chennai last month. Police have arrested 15 persons in connection with the fraud in Chennai and surroundings, seized more than 1,000 fake ATM cards with which the gang had withdrawn an estimated more than Rs one crore over a period of time. The modus operandi of the gang was to use a slim skimmer device to steal card data in ATMs which lacked security measures, including CCTV camera.
- PTI