ATM skimming racket suspected in Calcutta
August 01, 2018, The Telegraph
By Monalisa Chaudhary and Pinak Ghosh
By Monalisa Chaudhary and Pinak Ghosh
Over 30 Calcuttans have approached city police with complaints that amounts ranging from Rs 4,000 to Rs 40,000 have been debited from their bank accounts, fuelling suspicion whether they had fallen victim to skimming devices planted on some ATM machines.
It is yet to be established whether skimming machines were used in the city but such devices had been linked to rackets abroad. They are small devices that can be fitted to an ATM near the slot where cards are swiped.
he device can copy the data on the magnetic stripe - such as the card number, expiry date and CVV number, which can be used later to clone the card, a police officer said.
At least a dozen of the complaints are from accountholders in Canara Bank. Officials of the bank said customers who were affected might have been using old ATM cards that had a magnetic stripe, not the more secure chip-and-PIN ones. Canara Bank officials said they had sent out notices to customers to upgrade their cards.
Anindita Mukherjee, a resident of Ballygunge Gardens, said she had received a text message on July 29 on the withdrawal of Rs 20,000 from her Canara Bank account.
As Mukherjee enquired about the transaction she did not make, she came to know through the bank's toll free number that another Rs 20,000 had been withdrawn from her account. Both the transactions were made from an ATM in Delhi.
"I use the Canara Bank ATM at Golpark to withdraw cash. Two of my neighbours who also use the same kiosk also received similar text messages and lost Rs 4,000 each," Mukherjee told The Telegraph on Tuesday.
The police said three specific cases had been started in Gariahat, Tiljala and Beniapukur police stations. In one case linked to a Canara Bank ATM at Golpark, the police suspect that a cloned card had been used to withdraw the cash.
Asked how the cloned cards can be used since a confidential four-digit PIN had to be keyed in to finish the withdrawal, an officer speculated that a spy camera might have been used to record the hand movements, from which the PIN may have been deduced.
"It appears that fraudsters may have installed a spy camera in the ATM that could capture the hand movement as someone punches the PIN. However, all this is subject to verification," the officer said.
Another officer said a skimmer and a hidden camera could be installed only at ATM kiosks that are unguarded.
The CCTV footage of the ATM counters where the complainants used their debit cards will be scanned, sources said.
In 2011, the RBI had cautioned that the majority of cards issued by banks were magnetic stripe cards and data stored on such cards are vulnerable to skimming and cloning. Several banks are in advanced stages of replacing the old cards.
There has been no breach of data from the bank's end. Somehow, sensitive data relating to the customer's cards were obtained. Police complaints have been filed by the account holders and they have also informed the bank. We are investigating this issue and our headquarters has been informed. At the moment, it is not possible to disclose a cumulative amount," said a city-based Canara Bank official.
The official added that the customers' deposits are insured by Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation and within two to three days, the bank hoped to take action on the fraud.
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