Card cloning racket busted in Thane, three foreigners among four held

The district police today claimed to have busted a racket in debit card cloning with the arrest of four people, including three foreign nationals

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The district police today claimed to have busted a racket in debit card cloning with the arrest of four people, including three foreign nationals. The gang had duped several customers to the tune of several lakhs at ATMs and POS (point of sale) outlets, a senior official said. District Superintendent of Police (Rural) Mahesh Patil said the accused were booked under IPC sections related to cheating and forgery, among others.

The police gave the names of those arrested as Kalam Usman Khan (32-Kanpur), Richard Ronald Mago (32-Nigeria), Hileery Isten Kingen (27-Kenya) and Sandriq Sam Damba (20-Uganda). The police said the gang would fix card skimmers in ATMs to capture data and then fraudulently withdraw money from bank accounts of customers. Similarly, they tampered with POS machines and adopted the same procedure to transfer money from bank accounts of gullible customers by misleading them, the police said.

The police got a tip-off on the night of February 25 about the four men coming to a hotel at Kashimira. They kept a vigil and nabbed them when they arrived there. A four-wheeler, accessories used in the racket and around Rs 79,000 in cash were seized from them, the police said. Several IDs, Aadhaar cards, PAN cards, credit and debit cards of Indian and foreign banks were also seized from them, they added.