Mumbai: Romanian duo arrested in 2015 for cloning cards, held for the same crime

Miu Ayonel were arrested in New Delhi

Two years ago VB Nagar police in Kurla had arrested three Romanian nationals for siphoning off money from various bank accounts across Mumbai by skimming ATMs. Barely six months after their arrest the trio was released on bail in April 2016. Yesterday, Navghar cops apprehended two members of the same Romanian gang, again, for trying to fraudulently withdraw cash from over 1,550 bank accou­nts. According to cops, the duo, along with two of their Indian associates, planned to siphon off lakhs before NYE.

Marian Grama was arrested in New Delhi

Police sources identified the duo as Marian Grama, 44, and Miu Ayonel, 44,. A Navghar police officer said, "By December 29, we got nearly 99 complaints from citizens, most of them from Mulund, who said their cards had been swiped without their knowledge, in Mumbai. We zeroed down on two ATMs in Mulund from where the maximum cases were reported and found skimmers and hidden cameras inside the ATMs. CCTV footage helped us identify the Romanian duo. Since these two accused were arrested in 2015, we had their photos in our criminal records. When we found that the gang was operating out of New Delhi, we sent a team to the Capital. Our cops reached their hideout to find Ganesh Shinde and Pundlik Hadkar, the Romanian gang's Indian associates, trying to damage their laptops. We seized the laptops and arrested Shinde and Hadkar, who led us to Ayonel."

Ganesh Shinde was one of the Indians working for the duo

Navghar police inspector Pratap Bhosle said, "On technical analysis, we found debit card details of over 1,650 customers from the laptops we seized. The Romanian duo had planned a mega bash in Goa on NYE using the money they siphoned off using the cloned cards."

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