CHENNAI: In what could be the tip of the iceberg of an international racket, two Bulgarians staying in different hotels in the city have been arrested and as many as 50 cloned debit and credit cards and skimmer devices have been seized from them. While both were found to be friends on Facebook, police said it was yet to be ascertained how they coordinated with each other.
Police said the investigations began on Wednesday when they got an alert from a hotel at Semmanchery that staff had found a bunch of cloned debit and credit cards in the room where one Lion Markova (52) said to be a Yoga instructor, was staying. A police team raided the hotel room and seized as many as 50 cloned debit and credit cards, Rs 10 lakh in cash and Rs 3 lakh worth foreign currencies, skimmer devices and a laptop. Police said Markova was not present when they raided the room. He was arrested on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the police said they got a tip-off from another hotel at Semmanchery that a customer was using credit cards that had no details printed on them. In fake debit cards the stolen data is fed in the magnetic strip and the printing of details is done later. Since the hotel staff suspected the card could be a cloned one, they had alerted the police.
A police team on Thursday arrested one Peter Velikov (50) who was said to have been in possession of cloned cards. “He said he was working as a taxi driver and came on a tourist visa to India on April 3,” said a police officer investigating the case.
Markova is believed to have come to Chennai on April 24. “They had also used the cards to withdraw money from ATMs,” said the investigation officer.
Investigations are on to find how they had made the cards, if they had any cases against them and if they belonged to any international gang. The duo were handed over to the bank fraud prevention wing of the Central Crime Branch for further investigation.