Hyderabad: Gang stole over Rs 30 lakh memorising card details

Hyderabad: Can you remember the 16-digit number of a debit card along with its expiry date and the CVV number at one ago? Not easy, right? However, a young trio from Bihar have mastered it and even used the details to fraudulently purchase mobile phones. 

The accused youngsters have remembered details of over 200 debit cards of various banks and siphoned off over Rs 30 lakh belonging to the people, Cyberabad Police said.

The accused, according to the Cyberabad police have been identified as Manish Kumar, 19, Vinod Kumar, 18, and Manjesh Kumar, 21, all natives of Gopalgunj district in Bihar.

Manish, a Class IX dropout, Vinod, a Class X dropout and Manjesh, a Class X dropout were working as plumbers at a pipeline manufacturing company in Shadnagar. With easy access to the internet, Manish watched videos on YouTube on how to use debit cards for online shopping and also how to make purchases without using the OTP (one-time password).

“A few banks, including ICICI Bank and Axis Bank, provide an option to their customers to use the ATM PIN or OTP to validate online purchases. Learning about this, Manish hatched a plan to steal data from customers visiting the ATM centres and execute his plan. For this, he also searched on the internet for applications that provide details of the amount present in the bank account by entering debit card details,” Cyberabad police, who arrested Manish and his two associates, said.

Manish explained to his friend Vinod about the execution of the fraud and Vinod shared the same with his relative Manjesh. They mastered the shoulder surfing technique to collect the details of the debit cards used by the customers.

Shoulder surfing is a technique, where an offender stands behind or close to the user of the ATM machine and remembers the details of the debit/credit card, including the 16-digit card number, CVV and PIN. The police found that the number of victims were 200 and the total amount looted could be Rs 30 lakh. The cyber crime team seized 18 phones, five SIM cards and Rs 1.1 lakh cash.

“The ATM centres they targeted were in and around Shadnagar. The purchased mobile phones were all sold at cheaper rates.  and produced them before the court,” the police said on Monday. 

“The accused used to remember all the details of the card and store them in their mobile phones after coming out of the centre. They verified the details of the card to find the money present in the bank account, using a mobile application. At night, they would go on a shopping spree with the stolen details. About 75 complaints were received where the customers lost money without their consent and all of them were of online shopping,” the police said.