Man makes fake credit and debit cards, held

The Central Crime Branch sleuths have arrested a city-based man who stole debit and credit details using skimmer devices and made duplicate cards to withdraw money from bank accounts of victims.

Several fake debit and credit cards, skimmer devices, encoders, electronic data capture devices have been seized from the accused Imran Khan of Sithalapakkam near Medavakkam. During the preliminary inquiry, police found that he has withdrawn at least Rs 4.8 lakh from HDFC bank ATMs alone using fake cards and it could be just the tip of an iceberg as it is yet to be ascertained how many cards he has hacked in a similar manner.

The crime came to light when a virtual reality theatre owner in Kodaikanal approached the City Police Commissionerate recently with a complaint that money from his customers’ bank accounts vanished after they paid through Paytm and mobikwik stalls erected at the theatre entrance.

The complainant, Karthik, who runs a 7D theatre in Kodaikanal, told police that the accused, who introduced himself as Karthik, approached him in 2017 claiming to be a representative of Paytm and told him that visitors to the theatre would get 30 per cent discount if they bought tickets from him using their debit and credit cards. Believing him, Karthik let him erect a stall. He approached Karthik this year also, but this time he said he has shifted to mobikwik. However, he started getting complaints that those who used their cards at the stall lost money from their accounts.

Based on Karthik’s complaint, the anti-bank fraud wing of CCB registered a case and found that the accused’s original name is Imran Khan and he is from Sithalapakkam. Police said that he stole the details of debit and credit cards from gullible customers of 7D theatre using skimmer machines and transferred the details to a laptop. Later, he would make duplicate cards using those details and encoder machines.

While Imran Khan has been remanded in judicial custody, police are investigating whether anybody else is involved in the crime. They are also investigating how he procured the equipment to create the fake cards.