Hyderabad: Two Romanians involved in debit card data theft at ATMs were arrested by the Abids police on Thursday. They came to the city 25 days ago and since then had skimmers and micro cameras in eight ATM and stole data encrypted on the magnetic strip of an ATM card.
The incident came to light when a security guard at an ATM kiosk at Jagadish Market grew suspicious when one of the accused spent a lot of time in the kiosk and informed bank officials. When the bank officials checked the ATM, they found the skimmer and spy cameras.
They lodged a complaint with the Abids who arrested Dinita Virgil Sorinel, 47 and George Christian, 28. The police tracked them down using CCTV footage and questioning drivers of autorickshaws which the duo had taken. They were staying at a service apartment by producing a fake ID proof at Gachibowli.
They revealed that one Cristi, a Romanian national working in London, was operating the ring. He reportedly lured them with an offer of $5,000. The duo would remove the skimmers and cameras after 15 hours. Central Zone DCP P. Vishwa Prasad said the skimmers were fastened near the ATM card reader to capture data from the magnetic strip on the debit or credit card. Micro-cameras were used record the PIN entered by users.
