City cops bust fake credit card racket

CHENNAI: The Malaysian nexus to the fake credit card racket flourishing in leading metros through gangs operating from Chennai emerged in sharper contours after Central Crime Branch sleuths busted a major five-member network in the city on September 12.

A Malaysian national, suspected to be the kingpin, has been exporting blank cards and particulars of genuine foreign credit cards to the arrested gang leader Manoj Kumar and his associates, who used them for cloning.

Police said the South East Asian country is the hotbed for genuine and fake credit card manufacturing.

While cards issued by international banks originate in Malaysia, so do blank cards and stolen data, which make their way into the hands of racketeers in India.

The Malaysian connection first came to light, with the arrest of marine engineer Umesh alias Jatti (25), a Sri Lankan Tamil settled in Canada, and three of his associates in October last year.

During interrogation, Umesh revealed that he obtained blank cards and credit card data from agents in Malaysia.

He engraved and embossed the details on blank cards and used them to purchase goods. However, the identity of the kingpin still eluded them.

The breakthrough came when they probed into a complaint filed by a Citibank official, alleging that credit card details of customers had been stolen and were being used in other states, resulting in a loss of Rs 8.83 lakh.

Investigations led to Justin alias Sudhanandan, an employee of a petrol station in Anna Nagar.

Justin's modus operandi? He stole the data from customers using a skimmer machine and passed on the same to his friend Udayakumar, who relayed the particulars to Sabarisan alias Sabarirajan, a Keralite, staying in Palavakkam. Using the equipment from Mumbai, Sabarisan printed the fake cards and passsed data on Indian credit cards to Manoj.

It was through Manoj that the CCB were able to figure out the identity of the Malaysian kingpin Akbar alias Abdullah. "Manoj, a graduate in business administration, worked in Malaysia for a few years and established contact with Abdullah," a police official said. "On his return, he obtained details of foreign credit cards from Abdullah through emails and SMS and also imported blank cards through him and machines from China to make the fake cards."

He distributed the cloned cards to his Bangalore-based friends, Sunil Kumar alias Ajit Kumar, Idayatullah, Nayaz Ahmed and Vishali Tahlvi in Mumbai, who used them to purchase goods. Manoj and his gang were arrested on September 16 and two laptops, two embossing machines, two encoding machines, two tipping machines, 407 fake credit cards, 868 blank credit cards and a car were seized.

The police also arrested a 10-member gang headed by Gouthaman Elangovan and Kelvin in Anna Nagar on September 12.

They used data supplied from accomplices working in petrol pumps to make fake credit cards. Goods purchased were also seized. "These gangs were behind 80 per cent of such cases in the State," CoP Rajendran said here on Friday.