Srinagar Jan 4: A Nigerian national is under scanner of Jammu and Kashmir Police while four other persons have been arrested in the first case of cyber bank fraud in the Kashmir Valley.
In a first expose of its kind, police claimed to have unearthed a cyber crime network in old city’s Safakadal area by arresting four persons, including two non-state residents, involved in siphoning off lakhs of rupees from the bank accounts of people by using tampered and cloned credit and debit cards.
SSP Srinagar, Syed Ashiq Bukhari while terming the racket as highly hi-tech, said the gang has its tentacles spread across the Indian mainland where the common masses have been duped by hacking their e-banking accounts and later using the cloned credit and debit cards for money transaction.
During the preliminary investigation, SSP said police had been able to recover 18 cloned debit and credit cards of a number of banks like State Bank of India, HDFC and Citi Bank.
Bukhari said the fraud was unearthed after a victim recently lodged a complaint at Safakadal police station in old city.  The complainant, a local jeweller, had sounded off the police about a “fraudulent” digital transaction worth Rs 1.35 lakh made from his shop.
“So far the investigations have revealed that a Mumbai resident Sumair is the kingpin of this e-crime racket,” city police chief accompanied by SP North Showkat Shah and other senior police officials told media persons here.
“Sumair is believed to be a techie. He owned all the apparatus and other technical gadgetries to carry out the fraud”, Bukhari said.
He said Sumair had visited Srinagar last month. “He is on the run now. But we have detained four accused including two other Mumbai residents. We have recovered some 18 cloned credit cards from their possession,” he said.
Bukhari said the modus operandi of the gang was to first hack the e-banking accounts of the people, and later clone their credit cards to swipe money from the banks.
He, however, said that out of the 18 cloned cards only four have been used by the accused.
“They still managed to swipe some Rs 3.25 lakh from various accounts of customers who were predominantly foreigners and NRIs,” Bukhari said.
Bukhari was quick to add that it was not clear how the accused hacked and cloned the credit cards. “The investigations are on to see into that aspect also”.
He said the four people arrested so far were just the “ground workers” of the gang.
The police is also investigating international angle to the expose. “It seems it has international connection as well. We have also traced a Nigerian national who may be involved in the case,” the SSP said.

Lastupdate on : Tue, 4 Jan 2011 21:30:00 Mecca time
Lastupdate on : Tue, 4 Jan 2011 18:30:00 GMT
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