CHENNAI: The city police on Friday busted a fake debit card manufacturing racket with the arrested of a trio. Investigations revealed that the trio manufactured fake debit cards of International customers and used them to fill fuel for around Rs 21,000 at a petrol pump in Ambattur Estate for the last three months.
The arrested were identified as C Uday Kumar (39), of Chintadripet, M Shankar (40) and M Jeeva (45), both of Arumbakkam.
Police said Uday used to visit the petrol bunk on First Main Road in Ambattur estate to fill fuel. “Every time, he filled petrol using debit cards. When swiped, most of the time the transaction would show an error and he would give two or three others cards. This continued for the past three months,” said a police officer.
On July 10, the same thing happened and within minutes, officials of a private bank approached the petrol bunk ands inquired with the owner, Balamurugan, about the fake debit cards being used to fill petrol.
On being alerted, Ambattur Estate police sketched a plan and a special team led by inspector John Sundar collected images of Uday from the CCTV footage and launched a search for him. “On July 14, when Uday landed at the bunk to fill petrol he was caught red handed,” police said.
During interrogation he confessed to the crime. Explaining the modus operandi, Uday said he would get empty cards and clone numbers of other debit cards through details secured through the internet.