Four held for cloning credit cards

The arrested have been identified as Dheeraj Khanna, Pankaj Deewan, Yogesh Mahajan and Mohd. Yasin. Three others Kamal, Rahul and Devender Chauhan are yet to be arrested.

The four landed in police net following investigations into a complaint filed by an HDFC official who found transactions of huge amount through credit card swiping through machines installed in some shops.

"Domestic cards were cloned by Kamal and International cards by Devender Chauhan of Agra with the help of a professional hacker. The data of genuine customers was stolen through the skimmer (an instrument used to copy the data of a card) and then copied on a plain card having magnetic strip," police said.

The bank had provided six credit card swiping machines to one Rahul, later identified as Khanna, for his jewellery shop.

"The bank later witnessed highly suspicious transaction pattern on international and domestic cards amounting to Rs 9.75 lakh.

"During further review of transactions and the visits carried out by bank officials to collect the charge slips and other supporting documents, it was found that the merchant no longer existed at the said address furnished to the bank," police said. A case was then registered.

Khanna was first arrested and later the other three, who allegedly helped him swipe the cards.

"Khanna used to get 40 per cent of the total amount swiped on his machines. Cloned cards were arranged by Pankaj, Yogesh and Yasin through their contacts. They destroyed the EDC machines and cheque books when the bank tried to contact them," police said.