A 31-year-old electronics engineer from Coimbatore has emerged as the key accused – he prepared card readers, a skimmer, an ATM swipe cabinet and mini-data collectors – in the card cloning gang arrested on October 12. Officials said Ramesh Chandran was introduced to the gang on ICQ (an app similar to WhatsApp) where criminals have groups.

He has told the police that he purchased the items online and made modifications as per the client's requirement. Chandran charged R9,000 per machine and is suspected to have supplied them to card cloning gangs in India. He did so well that he purchased an SUV worth Rs 16 lakh.