2 Foreign Nationals Arrested in Bengaluru for Stealing ATM Card Details

Bengaluru: Two foreign nationals were arrested by the Cyber Crime Police of Criminal Investigation Department (CID) here on Tuesday while they were trying to remove a skimming device that they had fixed in an ATM.

The accused, 40-year-old Dan Sabin Cristian from Romania and 44-year-old Mare Janos from Hungary, fixed skimming devices in five ATMs in different parts of the city.

They used high-tech gadgets like pinhole camera, motion detector sensors to capture every detail of the card. The skimming device installed in the ATM would get details such as card number and the pinhole camera would get the PIN.

According to police the duo came to Bangalore on 1st September and hired a room before installing such devices in the next few days. Every day, they would take out the devices and retrieve the data collected before inserting them back again.

The accused confessed to police that they are part of an organised criminal gang and their associates were living in the United Kingdom. They travelled to India on a tourist visit and had booked their return ticket on 19th September. Police found laptop, hard disk and more skimming devices in the hotel where the foreign nationals were living in.

As of now, police found skimming devices installed by the duo in ATMs if Kotak Mahindra Bank at Kempegowda International Airport, MG Road and Brigade Road, Citi Bank at Garuda Mall, Canara Bank on MG Road.

“We are yet to confirm if the data was transferred to United Kingdom. We have found encrypted data and out technical team is trying decode it,” said Pratap Reddy, Additional Director General of Police, CID.

In preliminary investigation it is found that the accused have travelled around the world for this and a case was filed against Christian in Jamaica.

“Hungary and Romania Embassies in India have been informed about the arrest. We have not seen such cases, where they used spray paint on the skimming devices to match the colour of the parts of ATM, so that no one doubts that the ATM is rigged. We urge people to cover the keypad while punching in the PIN in ATM to be on a safer side henceforth,” said Kishore Chandra, Director General of Police, CID.