Hyderabad: Busting a fake ATM card racket allegedly run by a four-member gang of Romanians, the police on Tuesday arrested two of them on the charge of defrauding 46 people here of Rs 35 lakh from their accounts using cloned cards.
Vasile Gabriel Razvan and his friend Buricea Alexandru Mihai were the ones arrested. The other two, Ticu Bogdan Costinel and Puica Eugn Marian, are absconding and a search is on to nab them," Cyberabad Police commissioner V C Sajjanar said.
Police acted on complaints from 46 people over fraudulent cash withdrawal from their bank accounts in Mumbai.
During investigation, they identified four ATM centres in Mumbai from where the amounts were withdrawn by the accused.
Explaining the modus operandi of the accused, the commissioner said Gabriel hatched a plan to collect the debit cards data from ATMs by placing skimmers and shared his plan with the others.
Subsequently, he obtained business visas to his gang members to visit India, the commissioner said.
Gabriel and Alexandru came to Hyderabad in December 2017 and identified ATM kiosks having no security guards. As per Gabriel's instruction, Bogdan and Marian came here and placed the skimmers at various ATMs during February-March period. After collecting the data, Bogdan and Marian left India in April. The same month, Gabriel and Alexandru went to Mumbai with the data, cloned the cards and withdrew Rs 35 lakh from different ATMs, he said.
The two were arrested on Tuesday when they again came to Hyderabad, the officer added. The police seized cash totalling Rs 35 lakh, 196 skimmed cards, six ATM card skimmers and one laptop from the accused.
Kerala connection?
Last year, Kerala Police had arrested Ianut Alexander Marino, a Romanian kingpin of another gang, in connection with 2016 hi-tech ATM robbery case from Nicaragua in Central America. The five-member all-Romanian gang had looted around Rs 30 lakh from various ATMs in Thiruvananthapuram in 2016. Another accused, Illie Gabriel Marian, was also in police custody. Of the remaining three, two, identified as Christian Victor Constantine and Popus Cuflon, had been traced to England and Germany respectively. Efforts are still on for their extradition with the help of the Interpol and local agencies.
The fifth accused, whose identity is unknown, reportedly boarded a Mumbai-Istanbul flight from Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport on August 11, 2016 and is still at large.
