AYODHYA: A debit card cloning gang, which conned hundreds of gullible people queuing up at ATMs, was busted by Ayodhya police on Thursday. The Haryana gangsters would insert skimmers in the automated teller machines to steal passwords and other card details on the pretext of helping the elderly and tech-disabled to withdraw money.The cyber fraudsters were caught during routine checking of vehicles on Faizabad-Lucknow national highway under Raunahi police limits.
Talking to TOI, Ayodhya SSP Shailesh Pandey, said, “When police tried to intercept an Ertiga car, the driver accelerated and tried to flee. Police gave chase and stopped the vehicle to find three occupants, who were later identified as Praveen Kumar and Sandeep from Hisar and Mukesh Kumar from Jind. Four cloned ATM cards and 200gm of smack was recovered and the car number plate too was fake. During interrogation, the trio spilled the beans .”
Police said, the accused would hover around ATM outlets and target uneducated people and elderly, who would queue up to withdraw money. On the pretext of helping them, conmen would insert skimmers and copy card details. “Then they would use the cloned debit cards to empty accounts. Since masking up is common during pandemic, these men would not get identified from CCTV footage, said police.
