Magnetic card readers to mobile phones: Card cloning gang busted

Mumbai, Jan 09: Police have arrested four members of a gang involved in the cloning of debit, credit cards and withdrawing money from the card holders' bank accounts, an official said.

Acting on a specific tip-off, Unit 8 of the Mumbai Crime Branch laid a trap at an ICICI Bank ATM centre on Andheri-Kurla Road and arrested the four who were in a car, the official said.

The accused were identified as Ritesh Agrawal (27), Haider Shaikh (23), Rajesh Gouda (35) and Umesh Lokare (25), he said.

They were arrested and booked under relevant sections of the IPC and the IT Act, the official said.

The police recovered magnetic strip cards, magnetic card readers, dongles, eight ATM cards and four mobile phones from them, he said.

During interrogation, the accused admitted they had made duplicate debit and credit cards by obtaining personal details of their owners by installing magnetic card readers in ATM machines, he said.

They were produced before a court, which sent them in police custody till January 17, he said.