2 foreign nationals held for trying to steal ATM card details

The cyber crime police of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) arrested two foreign nationals at Kempegowda International Airport when they were trying to collect the skimming device details of credit and debit cards in a Kotak Mahindra ATM kiosk.

Director General of Police (CID) H C Kishore Chandra said, “The CID team has arrested Dan Sabin Cristian (40), a citizen of Romania, and Mare Janos (44), from Hungary, while they were taking details of credit and debit cards by installing skimming devices in five ATMs in the city.”

Chandra said the duo arrived in the city on September 1 on a tourist visa. They had installed skimmer devices in Kotak Mahindra Bank ATM at KIA, Trinity and Brigade Road Junction, Citi Bank ATM in Garuda Mall, Canara Bank ATM on MG Road. Kotak Mahindra Bank officials, who noticed the skimmers, lodged a complaint with the cyber crime police.

ADGP (CID) C H Prathap Reddy said that they laid a trap near KIA on Tuesday and arrested the duo when they came to collect details from the device. The sleuths conducted raids on their hotel rooms and seized three skimming machines, three mobile phones, passports, a laptop, hard disk and other materials which were used to send data to the United Kingdom.
 
Reddy added that, both were part of an organised criminal gang working with their associates living in the UK. This is the first time they had come to India. They were barred from entering the USA and Jamaica following the criminal cases initiated against them.

Both were produced before the magistrate and remanded in police custody till September 22 for further interrogation.

Modus operandi

The suspects used to identify the ATMs in busy areas and instal skimming devices. The suspects used to enter ATMs and take out the memory cards with details of debit and credit cards and put the empty card back. In some ATMs, the duo had also installed cameras to the roofs which look like smoke detectors.

CID officials directed the banks to inform their customers to change PINs of their credit/debit cards and cautioned the public to close one hand on top while typing the PIN in any ATMs.

Responding to the busting of the crime by the Bengaluru Police, the Citibank said on Saturday: “Security of our customer information is of paramount importance to Citi. To the best of our understanding, there has been no compromise of any customer data due to this fraudulent activity as on date, and we shall continue to take all possible steps to safeguard our customers' interests. We are closely monitoring the situation and co-operating with the law enforcement agency on this incident.”