15 suspects held in cloned cards scheme
By Xu Chi |
July 23, 2012, Monday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
POLICE have apprehended 15 people in China and Myanmar, including one in Shanghai, suspected of involvement in a scheme where cloned bank cards were used to steal nearly 10 million yuan (US$1.6 million) from victims' accounts.
Special card readers were installed at ATM machines at banks on the border between China and Myanmar to read cards inserted into the machines, police told Xinhua news agency yesterday.
At the same time, tiny cameras installed on the machines filmed the victims as they typed in their passwords, police said.
The information was then sent to China's Jiangxi Province where other members of the gang used the information to clone the cards.
The group in Jiangxi then checked the account balances and whenever they found a large amount of money being deposited, instructed other members to withdraw the money from ATM machines or use the cards to buy gold in Guangdong Province, police said.
The scam was uncovered in April, when a Beijing company which manufactures card reading machines noticed during checks that on two days in January, there were more than 5,000 account balance checks on 359 bank cards on 14 machines. The unusual activity prompted them to call the police.
Police contacted the card holders and some said money had been stolen from their accounts.
Shanghai police then worked with counterparts in Jiangxi, Guangdong and Yunnan provinces to investigate.
Police said the two leaders of the gang, a couple from Yugan County of Jiangxi Province, had divided the gang into two groups.
A 28-year-old man surnamed Xiong and his wife surnamed Tang were in charge of the group who went to banks on the border between China and Myanmar to collect card details, while another group led by Xiong's brother were based in Jiangxi.
Police said seven of the suspects were caught in Jiangxi, three in Guangdong, one in Shanghai and the other four in Myanmar.
Special card readers were installed at ATM machines at banks on the border between China and Myanmar to read cards inserted into the machines, police told Xinhua news agency yesterday.
At the same time, tiny cameras installed on the machines filmed the victims as they typed in their passwords, police said.
The information was then sent to China's Jiangxi Province where other members of the gang used the information to clone the cards.
The group in Jiangxi then checked the account balances and whenever they found a large amount of money being deposited, instructed other members to withdraw the money from ATM machines or use the cards to buy gold in Guangdong Province, police said.
The scam was uncovered in April, when a Beijing company which manufactures card reading machines noticed during checks that on two days in January, there were more than 5,000 account balance checks on 359 bank cards on 14 machines. The unusual activity prompted them to call the police.
Police contacted the card holders and some said money had been stolen from their accounts.
Shanghai police then worked with counterparts in Jiangxi, Guangdong and Yunnan provinces to investigate.
Police said the two leaders of the gang, a couple from Yugan County of Jiangxi Province, had divided the gang into two groups.
A 28-year-old man surnamed Xiong and his wife surnamed Tang were in charge of the group who went to banks on the border between China and Myanmar to collect card details, while another group led by Xiong's brother were based in Jiangxi.
Police said seven of the suspects were caught in Jiangxi, three in Guangdong, one in Shanghai and the other four in Myanmar.
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