Thane cops arrest 4 involved in Rs 94 cr Cosmos Bank data

Four persons wanted in a Rs 94 crore bank cheating case in Pune as well as card cloning cases in other places were arrested by Thane police, a senior official said on Saturday.

Hackers had siphoned of Rs 94 crore through a malware attack on the server of Pune-based Cosmos Bank ans cloning thousands of debit cards over two days in August last year.

Thane police commissioner Vivek Phansalkar said the first arrest was that of Sabhaz Mohammad Arif Khatri alias Rohan Ali Khan, on August 20, and multiple Aadhaar and PAN cards in his name were seized.

Khatri had four others who used to provide him with stolen data to clone cards, police said.

"We then arrested another person Keshavrai Magta Patra alias Reddy and seized two card cloning machines from him. The two revealed that they were involved in the Cosmos Bank hacking," he said.

Assistant Commissioner of Police (Crime) NT Kadam said, based on the questioning of Khatri and Reddy, two more persons, identified as Mohammad Asif Mohammad Zamil Shaikh and Mohammad Firoz Shaikh, were held from Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh.

He said investigations have revealed that Khatri and the two arrested from UP are the main accused in the Pune bank data theft case.

Phansalkar said the accused may have international links, which was being probed.