Masterminds of massive Navghar ATM fraud could be a Romanian

Romanian duo, who'd escaped on bail earlier this year, suspected to be behind Rs 18 lakh ATM fraud in Navghar

A Romanian duo has gotten second time unlucky with their ATM card fraud in the city. After being held in 2015 for duping hundreds of customers from 20 banks all over Mumbai, the cyber fraudsters have been caught again, this time for cheating nearly 48 people to the tune of nearly Rs 18 lakh from an ATM in Navghar. Despite 10 FIRs and a strong chargesheet, they'd escaped the previous case on bail earlier this year. But they struck again this time with the same old modus operandi.

Meu Ioneil and Marian Grama

The Romanians identified as Marian Grama, 42, and Meu Ioneil, 42, were arrested in Delhi on Wednesday for their latest heist. A police inspector told mid-day that Grama and Ioneil are well versed with skimming and cloning cards. They would procure high-end skimming devices and magnetic strip cards from China and use spy cameras of spy pens to copy the debit card PINs.

Back in 2015
These spy cameras were fitted along with the skimming device to the ATM machines for seven days to steal card data. Later, the data would be used for cloning cards. The counterfeit cards were then used to withdraw money from different ATM kiosks.

Back in 2015, joint commissioner of police (law and order) Deven Bharti had claimed to have solved multiple cases of card cloning in the city and announced the arrests of the three suspects, Grama, and Ioneil and one Alin Budoie, 31. Cops had then claimed the Romanian nationals were suspected to have duped several people in Italy, Romania and more European countries. The VB Nagar police had clubbed maximum cases and charge sheeted the three.

Got bail
However, despite a watertight case, the accused managed to secure bail earlier this year and resumed their card cloning fraud to dupe more Mumbaikars. Alas, their plan didn't succeed, they are being brought to the city and Navghar police would interrogate them in their case. Sources say Grama and Ioneil could be involved in a similar racket recently unearthed in Pune. Back in 2015, cops had recovered Rs 28.54 lakh, four Apple iPhones, one iPad, spy cameras, skimmers, 497 blank ATM cards with magnetic codes and plastic electric coating strips along with two laptops, in total valued at Rs 31.34 lakh.

20
No. of banks the duo had targeted in 2015

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