ATM card cloning gang busted, four arrested

LUCKNOW : The cyber cell of Lucknow police busted an interstate gang of cyber thugs on Tuesday and arrested four persons from near the ATM kiosk of State Bank of India, main branch, Lucknow.

Cops also recovered 22 ATM cards, 18 card cloning machines, one laptop, three card skimmer machines, two ATM swapping machines, two four-wheelers and Rs 15,000 cash from the possession of the accused.

The gang had also purchased a plot and a beer shop in Gonda district apart from carrying out online shopping and trading of shares worth several crores.

Those arrested have been identified as Anil Kumar Varma, Shubham Pandey, Amit Singh, all natives of Gonda district and Hasan Shah, resident of Daliganj, Lucknow. Among those arrested, Shubham Pandey is BSc (honours) in computer application from Hindu College, New Delhi.

The gang was active in several districts of the state including Lucknow, Kushinagar, Maharajganj, Rae Bareli, Basti, Deoria, Gorakhpur, Hapur, Meerut, Faizabad, Fatehpur, Lakhimpur Kheri, Sitapur, New Delhi and in several districts of Bihar and Rajasthan. In Lucknow, the gang was involved in 14 cases of ATM frauds, 11 in Mahanagar area and three in Hasanganj.

According to cops, the gang used to identify people in crowded ATM kiosks, especially women, who were not able to use debit cards properly. Thereafter, one of the gang members used to take the debit card from the woman pretending to help her and then clandestinely he used to make its clone with a card skimming machine. “The gang was not only active in several districts of the state but in Bihar, Rajasthan and New Delhi also,” Sarvesh Mishra, superintendent of police (East), told the media on Tuesday.