Indian police arrest Nigerian for fixing PIN-capturing device at ATM – The Puducherry police of India arrested a Nigerian on Friday on charges of fixing a skimmer and a camera to record PIN at an ATM of a nationalized bank.
According to Indian Times, Jasher Celestine, 28, from Nigeria, has been staying at Mambakkam in Chennai for the past three years, police said. Police have launched a search for Miller Aleksandrov Hristov of Bulgaria and Milton Vladimir Cornel Zambrano of Venezuela, Jasher’s accomplices in the crime.
Senior superintendent of police (law and order) Rahul Alwal said Jasher had fixed a PIN-capturing device to the ATM and added he might have planned to install a skimmer later. “The fraudsters fixed PIN-capturing devices above the ATM keypads and skimmers near the card slots. The device has a camera and records PINs keyed in by unsuspecting customers while the skimmer collected the card details. The video and card details got stored in a memory card.
They removed the devices later and made duplicate debi’, credit cards with the stolen details using a magnetic strip writer. They then siphoned money from the victims’ bank accounts,” said Alwal. He said two gangs worked together in such crimes. “One gang collects PINs and details of the cards and sells the information to other gang over the Darknet. The other gang makes bogus cards with stolen card details and steals the money,” he said.
Alwal said Jasher mainly collected card details and passed the info to Miller and Milton, who operate internationally. “The absconding suspects belong to an international gang that makes bogus cards. The two used to visit Jasher often to collect card details. We have sent their photos to the respective countries to nab them,” he said.
The issue came to the light when the ATM coordinator lodged a complaint with the cybercrime cell stating that he found a PIN-capturing device fixed above the keypad during his routine supervision.
Jasher confessed to the crime. Police have booked the three under Sections 379 and 511 of IPC and Section 66 C and D of IT Act, 2000.