Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SP)

Bangaluru, May 6: Cyber cell police of criminal investigation department (CID) have succeeded in busting a racket of fraudsters operating at international level, who used to steal debit and credit card information of consumers, prepared duplicate cards, and siphoned money from their bank accounts.

Three persons, Kiran D K (34) from Talaghattapura here, Neeta (34), resident of Reliable Lifestyle apartment at Kasuvanahalli here, and Manoj Kumar (41), were involved with this racket, out of whom the first two have been apprehended. Manoj Kumar (41), who was the main conspirator, has succeeded in absconding.

Addressing a press conference here on Thursday May 5, CID inspector general of police, Hemant Nimablkar, said that a special police team has been formed to arrest the absconding accused. He said that after getting information that Manoj had amassed lot of money through some online transactions, the police looked into his activities.

After the cyber police got information about the racket of Manoj Kumar, a team led by deputy superintendent of police, Sharat, conducted an operation near the international airport here and arrested Neeta. During the raid on the house of Manoj Kumar near Koodlu, they stumbled upon over 2,700 fake debit and credit cards. A machine used for manufacture of credit and debit cards was found from the house of Neeta. Machine reader, writer machine, two card embossing machines, a SIM card imaging machine, a thermal printing role, VISA and MasterCard holograms,and electronic data capture machines, were also seized. Two cars including an Audi Q7, 22 EDC machines, bank passbooks, three phones, and 16 cheque books were seized by the police.

The members of the gang used skimming machines to steal and store credit and debit card details of consumers using their cards, which were then transferred to fake cards. The skimming machines were attached to swiping machines at malls, ATMs, petrol bunks etc to cull out details. The information so got was then shared with a foreign country.

Reportedly, Manoj Kumar cheated consumers to the extent of five to seven crore rupees during the last four months. Cash and car were seized from Manoj Kumar after being arrested in December 2015 for his links with international hackers. But he had succeeded in getting bail within two days. A case had been registered against him for the first time in Chennai in 2002, and he also underwent a year's imprisonment in Maharashtra in 2003. In 2010, case under Goonda Act had been registered at Chennai. His brother, Hemant Kumar, who was also engaged in similar activities, had been arrested in Chennai in the past, the policemen claim.