22 December,2017 04:10 PM IST | Pune | Chaitraly Deshmukh
All the victims are Pune residents, who had swiped their debit cards at the same Punjab National Bank (PNB) branch in October
The police have arrested three foreign nationals for cloning nearly 1,000 debit cards in Pune before illegally withdrawing cash amounting to lakhs from those bank accounts. All the victims are Pune residents, who had swiped their debit cards at the same Punjab National Bank (PNB) branch in October.
Representational Pic
The accused have been identified as Romanian nationals Balan Florea Cristinel, 45, Lazar Alin Cristi, 22, and Irimia Dragos Ionut, 22. The case came to light after Pune Police's Cyber Cell received several complaints from citizens about wrongful transactions from their bank accounts.
Senior Inspector Dayanand Dhome said, "While probing the case we realised almost all the cards had been swiped by the victims at PNB's Aundh branch. Soon after, we got complaints from Pune residents who said their cards had been swiped in Mumbai. We combined the probe and found a pattern. We sent teams to Bengaluru and Mumbai."
Assistant police inspector Sanjay Thenge said, "They have withdrawn over R29 lakh, so far. We learnt that the trio had placed a card skimmer at the ATM booth."
The trio has been remanded to police custody.
