“About 15 to 20 complaints filed daily about cloning frauds, informing that money was deducted from bank accounts after someone carried out transactions using cloned cards,” Mohammed Riyazuddin, a cyber crimes inspector, said.
M Naik (name changed) an IT professional of Madha pur, received an SMS giving details about a `bank transaction’ confirming withdrawal of Rs 70,000. Shockingly, the SMS mentioned the location of the transaction as Texas in the US.
Immediately, Naik verified his bank account details and found the transaction had indeed happened. He approached his bank, but it was of no use. Then, he went to police and they discovered that cloning of plastic money has crossed the shores!
Investigators are still puzzled how bank customers in Hyderabad lost money in Washington, London and other places, when the victims were very much in the city.
Police claim the customers became victims of cloning as CCTV footage proved that the culprits were caught drawing money in ATM kiosks in Mumbai and other places. Though the fraud happened in the country , the investigators were still not in a position to certainly say how the account holders’ debit card details were stolen.
The investigators suspect that the fraud could be perpetrated either by compromising on bank database or through some gadgets like data reader surreptitiously attached at ATM centres and phishing data. Using the data, cards are cloned and illegal transactions were being carried out.
Deputy Commissioner of police (CCS) C Ravi Verma said they had written to some banks in Mumbai seeking details of certain transactions.