Be careful before you swipe your credit/debit cards – Here is why!

New Delhi: While there is no denying that the government is making all efforts to fight black money and corruption through demonetisation and make India a cashless economy, one must also accept the fact that the move has been misused by many.

While the tax department has raided and seize crores of rupees and over 100 kgs of gold in the fight against black money and corruption post demonetisation, Goa police has reportedly arresting three for allegedly installing card-reading devices in point of sale (POS) machines.

According to reports, Goa police on Saturday arrested persons hailing from Uttar Pradesh who allegedly installed card-reading devices in POS machines at Calangute beach village.

"Cyber crime cell of Goa police arrested Ramesh Chauhan (46), Alihusain Asad Galli (21) and Abhishekh Singh (29). They were apprehended from Calangute with debit/credit card skimmers when they were looking for prospective outlets to deploy these," Deputy Inspector General Vimal Gupta told reporters today.

He said the cyber crime acted on a tip-off received by Deputy Superintendent of Police Nelson Albuquerque.

"The Cyber Crime police station was assisted by Calangute police station during the raid," Gupta said.

Police have attached two skimmers, one laptop, four mobile phones, two pen drives and seven debit cards and other articles from the accused.

Whenever a customer swiped a debit or credit card in such machines, they recorded the card data along with the Personal Identification Number, a police officer said.

"The Cyber Crime police recovered a skimmer from the possession of arrested accused and others from the place where it was installed. The recovered skimmer look very similar to a genuine POS terminal that is credit/debit card swiping machine and cannot be identified as a skimmer by a layman," Gupta said.

A case under section 420 (cheating) of IPC and section 66 of IT Act has been registered in this regard, police said, adding a probe was underway.

 

With PTI Inputs