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Thursday March 28, 2024

Four more Chinese men held for ATM fraud

By our correspondents
January 15, 2018

Four more Chinese nationals were caught red-handed on Sunday withdrawing cash from ATMs with forged cards in two separate raids in Defence Housing Authority and Bahadurabad, while hundreds of blank ATM cards and millions in cash were also seized.

Addressing a press conference, Clifton Division SP Dr Assad Malhi said a mobile was on patrol in DHA Phase-II in the pre-dawn hours when they spotted five foreigners involved in suspicious activities around the area’s ATMs.

When police tried to question them, the foreigners attempted to flee, but officers managed to detain three of them, he said. According to the SP, the arrested Chinese nationals were carrying school bags and when police officials searched them, they found nearly 350 master ATM cards and Rs2.3 million in cash.

Malhi added the suspects, who arrived in the country three days ago, had installed skimming devices at ATMs. First they collected customers’ data via the device and then they placed the data on blank master cards and fraudulently withdrew money from people’s accounts.

During interrogation, the suspects told police that they had withdrawn Rs2.3 million from ATMs of three private banks in Phase-II. They also said that they had been hired by a man who had told them there were job opportunities in Pakistan and that they were earning 10,000 Chinese Yuan per month for this scheme.

SP Malhi further added that the suspects said many Chinese nationals were involved in the illegal business, but all of them did not know each other. “An organised group is carrying out these activities in the country. They all are foreign nationals,” the SP said, adding all Chinese skimmers have one handler. Based on leads provided by the suspects, police conducted a raid at their residence from where they detained another Chinese national and seized 150 more master ATM cards.

Police would be handing the suspects to the Federal Investigation Agency’s Cyber Crime Cell for registration of case and further investigations. Separately, Bahadurabad police also arrested a Chinese national, who was withdrawing cash from an ATM of a private bank near Tipu Sultan Road during the wee hours of Sunday.

Gulshan-e-Iqbal Division SP Ghulam Murtaza Bhutto told The News that Bahadurabad police received a call from police helpline 15 Madadgaar where a caller lodged a complaint that he had seen Chinese individuals entering ATMs at Shabbirabad.

Bhutto said police responded immediately and arrested a Chinese national named Xu Zhuping and seized Rs6.5 million, various amounts of Chinese currency, ATM skimming devices, his identity card, passport and mobile phone.

The SP said that three of the suspect’s companions managed to flee, but police has retrieved CCTV footage from bank’s cameras to arrest them after identifying them. Just last week, two Chinese nationals were arrested from Saddar trying to install skimmers on an ATM.

Over the past year, several instances of ATM hacking through installed skimmers – devices that steal ATM card data – have been reported in the country, mostly involving culprits based in China or Chinese individuals withdrawing money from forged cards here.

In the wake of these incidents, the Sindh government has written to the federal government to register and keep a record of Chinese nationals entering the province via land routes, which are not as tracked as air routes are.