Thane Police claimed to have busted a debit and credit cards skimming racket, being run at restaurants and hotels and adjoining Mumbai, with the arrest of 10 persons.
The accused have cheated over 300 people to the tune of Rs. 30 lakh, police said.
Based on a complaint received from HSBC Bank officials of some suspicious transaction at an ATM, the police laid a trap and on Friday arrested three prime accused – Sumeet Sanjay Zingran, an MBA from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, Viki Ilias Carvalho and Kevin Jerry D’souza, Deputy Commissioner of Police (crime branch), Thane, Parag Manere told mediapersons here last evening.
Seven others arrested on Saturday were identified as Bipin Roy, Sourabh Jaiswal, Narayan Yadav, Mahesh Kisan, Ashok Mahanto, Vinod Patel and Shivnath Gupta. They worked as waiters in various hotels of Thane and Mumbai, the DCP said.
Around 300 fake credit and debit cards were seized from the arrested persons. Two laptops, a card writer, six skimmers, a modem, router, blank cards filled with data, three mobile phones and Rs. one lakh cash and also a rare monkey, which was allegedly brought from abroad to be sold in India at a high price, were also recovered from them, he said.
Revealing the modus operandi of the gang, the DCP said when the customers, after having their food, handed over the credit/debit cards for swiping, the accused waiters would copy information of the card by using skimmers and after taking the PIN code from the customer, misused it later to withdraw money.
The skimmers were purchased online by the accused.
The data copied along with the PIN number was used to make fake credit and debit cards which were later used by the accused to withdraw money from ATMs, he said.
The gang had cheated over 300 people to the tune of Rs. 30 lakh, he said, adding that further probe was on in the matter.
