Do you prefer using your debit/credit card instead of cash at petrol pumps and other places? In case you do, think again. You might be at the risk of exposing the safety of your bank account and the cash in it. This was revealed after the CCS police on Monday arrested a 24-year-old and three others on the charges of phishing and cloning as many as 150 electronic cards .
According to the CCS DCP LVK Ranga Rao, the main accused in the case is Syed Jaber (24), a resident of Amberpet and an executive of the HSBC call centre, Madhapur.
The other three are R Krishna (20) and K Venkatesh (21), both cashiers at the Prodduturi Services, IOC petrol pump at Habsiguda respectively and N Vasanth Kumar (60), also a cashier at BPC petrol pump at Ramanthapur.
While the two employees at the IOC pump used to clone the cards, Vasanth was the one who would convert the data into money on a commission basis for Jaber.
Modus Operandi: Jaber, an MBA graduate from Muffakamjah College, has the knowledge of electronic cards as he deals with them daily in his office. In order to support his lavish lifestyle, Jaber took a hacking course at an institute in Banjara Hills after which he began looking online to phish people.
Meanwhile, he met one Omorye of Nigeria, who taught him how to hack and steal money from electronic cards. Jaber then procured a magnetic strip reader/skimmer from abroad, and started cloning credit/debit cards. He used to purchase the data of the cards from abroad and would duplicate the cards in India. After some time, he started cloning cards in the city.
He sought the help of Krishna and Venkatesh and Vasanth Kumar.He gave both cashiers at the IOC pump two mini skimmers to collect data from the cards of customers when they would pay for fuel.
Through this arrangement Jaber managed to clone more than 150 credit/debit cards, and managed to amass `25 lakh in an account. After the two employees gave him the data of the 150 cards, Jaber even sold away a few cards and also some of the data and prepared some duplicate cards on his own to use himself.
The fourth accused, Vasanth Kumar, however, was the one with whose help Jaber converted the data in money through swiping. Kumar would take some money for himself. This continued for more than six months, and Jaber managed to draw out a further amount of `10 lakh.