Investigations into a card cloning racket which was running in Bandra, has revealed that the six accused who worked as waiters, managed to steal credit card and debit card data of as many as 1,000 customers from 96 different banks including eight major banks.

However, the Bandra police clarified that all of the stolen data may not have been used for stealing money. The data was stolen by the six waiters working in bars and restaurants using credit card skimmers at Mumbai, Pune and Thane from their unsuspecting customers and patrons since early 2016.

Three of them had worked at a restaurant called Persian Durbar in Sakinaka, Andheri. The unsuspecting customers would hand over their card as well as pin code to the waiters, who secretly swiped them on the skimmers. In some cases, they observed the customer while entering the pin code on the keypad and memorised it.

The Bandra police said that there are more links to the case and the involvement of more accused besides the 6 waiters has not been ruled out. Deputy commissioner of police, zone IX, Paramjit Dahiya told HT, We are in the process of identifying the people whose credit and debit card data was stolen.

Till now, 20 people have been identified and as many First Information Reports (FIRs) have been registered in Thane, Pune and Mumbai. The police are simultaneously also finding out if FIRs have already been registered by victims after realising that money had been withdrawn from their accounts.

Detection officer, sub inspector Bhimsen Gaikwad said, We had received a complaint from a private bank in May this year after which we traced the accused, which led to further arrests. Now, another major bank has approached us and we are taking their help to identify the victims.

The complaint filed in May by the private bank had said that an unidentified accused had withdrawn money from an ATM on Carter Road using a cloned card of a customer. The police worked out the information and arrested one of the accused this month. His arrest led to the arrest of seven others.

Apart from card skimmers, the police seized a laptop and a software they used to clone cards.The police have also seized 50 cloned cards which are re-writable. After using these cards to withdraw money, the accused wouls erase the used data and store new data on it by overwriting it.

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Card cloning racket: Mumbai gang steals debit, credit card data from 1000 customers of 96 banks - Hindustan Times