Chasing a bank card-skimming mastermind
Law enforcers have arrested two fraudsters for allegedly stealing Tk 9.60 lakh from two ATM booths of Pubali Bank in Chattogram about eight months after the incidents.
The arrestees are: Md Shariful Islam (34), son of late Yasin Ali of Dhaka, and his associate Md Mohiuddin Monir (30), son of late Hazi Ahmmed Hossain, a resident of Sadarghat area of Chattogram city.
Deputy Commissioner (West) of Chattogram Metropolitan Police Faruk Ul Haque said they were arrested from the port city's Agrabad commercial area on Tuesday night by Double Mooring Police.
Shariful Islam, who completed his higher studies abroad and later got involved in crime after returning to the country in 2010, is a mastermind of forgery related to ATM machines and has previously been arrested several times by law enforcing agencies for cloning credit and debit cards since 2013, police said.
"Shariful Islam is a mastermind when it comes to Bank cards-related crime. But in this case, he adopted a new technique where he opened the ATM machine, hacked the server and took away Tk 9.60 lakh from two Pubali Bank booths," DC Faruk said while addressing a press conference today.
"The incident took place on November 17 last year when Tk 9.60 lakh was withdrawn from two ATM booths of Pubali Bank Limited in the port city's Chowmuhoni and College Road branches. Bank authority detected the crime and filed two general diaries with Double Mooring and Chawkbazar police stations," said Sadip Kumar Das, officer-in-charge of Double Mooring Police Station.
"During investigation into the GDs, police also came to know that Tk 3.30 lakh was withdrawn from Cumilla's Kandirpar Pubali Bank branch booth on November 16, 2019 and Tk 10,000 from Narayanganj's Bangabandhu Road branch booth in Chashara on November 15, 2019 in a similar way," the OC said.
"On June 22 this year, Shariful and his associate went to the ATM booth of Southeast Bank GPO branch in the port city's Kotwali area but failed to withdraw money. On the same day they went to the city's Agrabad Midland Bank's ATM booth but failed there too," OC Sadip said.
"From the CCTV footage, police were confirmed about Shariful and collected information about him," he also said, adding that police later arrested him from Agrabad area on Tuesday night.
HOW THEY HACKED THE BANK SERVERS
"Shariful earlier used to clone debit and credit cards but after his arrest in Dhaka's Banani area by Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in 2018, he adopted a new technique to hack bank servers," Inspector Jahir Hossain (Investigation) of Double Mooring Police Station told The Daily Star.
During primary interrogation, Shariful said he completed his studies in mining science in Russia and UK and learned the card-skimming skill from one UK citizen Mohantaj Panothorai. And after coming back to Bangladesh, he first started a travel agency in Halishahar, Inspector Jahir said quoting Shariful.
"Later, after the UK citizen Mohantaj came to Bangladesh, the two started card-forgery together in the port city. They were arrested by Panchlaish police of CMP in 2013," he also said.
"After the arrest in Panchlaish, Shariful was in jail for 18 months. Once out, he moved to Dhaka and took a job at a superstore in 2018. But during this time, he started card-skimming again. Later CID arrested him for that and he was in jail for five months in the case," added Jahir.
"Coming out of jail, he learned the new technique and first withdrew money from Narayanganj Pubali Bank booth as practice," the inspector added.
Police also said Shariful stands accused in seven cases filed in Dhaka, Chattogram and Cumilla.
Several banks' debit and credit cards, card reader, keyboard, pen drives, USB-hub and a locally made pistol were recovered from his possession, they added.
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