Guard catches skimming schemer ...Three more arrests widen scope of investigation

Monalisa Chaudhuri, TT,  Aug 09, 2018, Elgin Road: A security guard posted at an ATM on Elgin Road caught a man trying to plant a data skimming device on the machine around 8.30pm on Tuesday, leading police to two more persons allegedly involved in the widening racket.

Two Romanians, both picked up in Delhi last week and brought to Calcutta, were the first arrests in the investigation into the ATM fraud that started with several people reporting unauthorised withdrawals from their bank accounts.

Security guard Saifuddin has been rewarded with Rs 5,000 for catching one of the offenders and helping open up the police probe.

"Saifuddin didn't let go of Rohit Nair, the person he saw trying to plant the skimming device, even after two accomplices of his entered the kiosk to free him," an officer in Lalbazar, the city police headquarters, said on Wednesday.

The duo fled leaving Rohit behind when they saw a vehicle approaching and thought that the police had arrived. Based on information extracted from Rohit, the police later traced Sahil Khan, alias Sayeed Sayed, to the airport. The third accused, Sudhir Rajen, was picked up from CIT Road.

They have been remanded in police custody till August 21.

The ATM where the incident occurred belongs to Kotak Mahindra Bank, customers of which are among the 80-odd people who have so far reported unauthorised withdrawals from their accounts with cloned cards.

Rohit, an engineering college dropout, is from Mumbai. Sahil, who is also from that city, was arrested before he was to catch a flight back home under the alias "Ajay Chauhan", the police said.

"Sahil is the leader among the three. He had lived in Australia for two years and married a foreigner. He claims to have been in the broadband business, which started making losses after Jio was launched," the officer said.

Sahil and Rohit had been staying in a hotel in Bhowanipore. Rajen had checked into a hotel in Howrah.

Two skimming devices, pinhole cameras, mobile phones and a laptop were seized from them.

The gang of three told the police that they were unaware of the arrest of two Romanians allegedly involved in the racket and had come to Calcutta to plant skimmers on some more ATMs. "They apparently came to know about the arrest of the Romanians only on Tuesday and were trying their luck for the last time before leaving the city," an officer said.

The compromised ATMs include the one in Kasba where a customer had found a skimming device on Sunday. The device had come off when the customer suspected something was amiss and touched it.

"The ATM belonging to Axis Bank had an anti-skimming device attached to it, which is possibly why the skimmer couldn't be planted properly," the officer said.

An IndusInd ATM in Kasba and an ATM of ICICI Bank on Lindsay Street had also been targeted.

The arrested trio have admitted to stealing encrypted data from at least 100 cards swiped in Calcutta ATMs.

Investigators have learnt that the larger racket involves Indians, Romanians and Nigerians. "Everyone has a different role to play. Some install skimmers, others clone cards and a third group carries out cash withdrawals using the illegal cards," an officer said.