THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A 34-year-old man was arrested by the cyber crime wing of the state police on Monday for allegedly taking money from the credit cards of foreign tourists who visited Varkala through skimming.
Jinto Joy of Thrissur, who was part of a credit card fraud gang, was arrested from New Delhi. Earlier, the police had registered a case and issued a lookout notice against him when he had gone absconding abroad.
Modus Operandi
Jinto was working in the Varkala branch of the UAE Exchange for quite some time. He used to get the details of the credit cards of foreigners who visited the exchange using a skimming device. Then, he recorded the picture of the PIN number of the card using the hidden camera on the POS machine. The details from the skimming device would be transferred to a laptop. The gang would make fake ATM cards to withdraw money.
Later, he handed over the details to the other members of the gang and they took money from different ATM counters at Bengaluru and Coimbatore.The cyber division had registered a case based on the complaint lodged by French national Francois Mousis who had lost money on his credit card on January 18 from an ATM counter at Bengaluru. The fraud came to the light after he received an SMS regarding the withdrawal of cash.
The police officers said more persons could be involved in the operation and they will be nabbed soon. The police also suspect more foreign tourists could have become victims of the fraud.The arrest was made by the police team led by cyber crime DySP Iqbal. N Biju, Inspector, SI G S Ratheesh and civil police officer B S Binu were also part of the operation. The arrested was remanded in 14-day judicial custody.