Two including Romanian national arrested for cloning ATM cards in Madhya Pradesh
Aug 16, 2023
Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh) [India], August 16 : Bhopal cyber police have busted a gang involved in duping people by cloning their ATM cards and arrested two persons, including a Romanian citizen, from New Delhi, officials said on Wednesday.
According to police, the accused have been identified as Ayoniel Miu (50) -- a Romanian national, and Firoz Ahmed Khan (38), a resident of Thane, Maharashtra.
The accused used to target the customers of only one particular bank and they used to collect the information about the ATM cards by using skimmer devices.
Bhopal Commissioner of Police (CP) Harinarayan Chari Mishra told ANI, “Bhopal Cyber police have busted a gang which was involved in duping people by cloning ATM cards of customers of only one particular bank. The accused duped around 75 people from the city and around a dozen in different cities across the country.”
It was a challenge for us as the money was withdrawn from the ATMs, neither anyone had shared the OTP nor had clicked any kind of link. The police took the matter seriously and investigated it properly. The police checked over hundreds of CCTV footage of ATMs and then reached the accused, Mishra said.
The officer further said, “The police arrested both the accused from New Delhi. The main accused is a Romanian citizen Ayoniel Miu and his one associate Firoz is a resident of Thane. The police also recovered ultra-modern equipment from both the accused. The accused are being interrogated further.”
Talking about the modus operandi of the crime, the commissioner said the accused used to install skimmer devices and hidden micro cameras in the ATMs to collect information and after that, the accused used to clone the ATM cards using the info. These accused used to commit these crimes in different cities and after cloning the card, they used to withdraw cash only from ATMs in Delhi. They had withdrawn from a total of nine ATMs in Delhi and its nearby location.
The Romanian accused is a drug addict. He came to India in 2015. There are other cases registered against him at different places. The police are also finding information about its passport and visa, if any irregularities are found then action will be taken under that too, he added.
As far as the involvement of bank employees in the incident has not yet come to light, though the police are investigating it, the commissioner said.
