Five held for running interstate card cloning scam from Mumbai

The Mumbai crime branch's property cell has busted an interstate gang of cyber fraudsters by arresting five persons, who would skim and clone banking cards of people and siphon-off money from their bank accounts. Since the year 2013, the accused have duped over thousands of persons — mostly foreigners — of crores of rupees.

The accused have been identified as Mohamed Hasan Iqbal Shaikh, 44, Mukesh Sharma, 40, Zuber Sayed, 35, Fahim Shora, 30 and Abu Bakar, 45.

According to the police, the accused would target several shops and outlets in Mumbai, which would be frequented by visitors. The accused had spread their network in all tourist destinations across the country, including Mumbai, Goa, Bangalore, Jaipur, Himachal Pradesh, Ludhiana, Chandigarh and Kullu-Manali.

The police said that they had received a tip-off, and post verification, a case was registered in Malvani police station. "After registering the case, we raided several premises in Mumbai from where the accused would operate and stay. We arrested these five people and seized 51 swiping machines, two laptops, 65 duplicate debit and credit cards, a card reader and several chequebooks from their possession," said an officer from the property cell.