Man involved in ATM fraud in 3 cities held

Police claimed to have arrested two ATM fraudsters from port city's Agrabad commercial area on Tuesday night.

According to law enforcers, they stole Tk 9.60 lakh from two ATM booths of Pubali Bank in Chattogram around eight months ago.

Besides, they also withdrew Tk 3.30 lakh from a Pubali Bank booth in Cumilla and Tk 10,000 from a booth of the same bank in Narayanganj in November last year, said police.

On June 22, they again tried to take money from ATM booths in Chattogram but failed. From CCTV camera footage, police confirmed it and gathered information, which eventually led to his arrest. The arrestees are Md Shariful Islam (34) and his associate Md Mohiuddin Monir (30).

Law enforcers of Double Mooring Police Station made the arrest, said Deputy Commissioner (west) of Chattogram Metropolitan Police Faruk Ul Haque while address a press briefing at the station.

Shariful, the mastermind, completed his higher studies abroad and got involved with crime after coming back to the country in 2010, said police. He apparently learned how to skim cards from a UK national while there.

The police official said later the UK national came to Bangladesh, and the two started skimming cards together in port city. They were arrested by Panchlaish Police Station in 2013. The official, however, could not confirm the whereabouts of the foreign national.

Shariful has also been arrested several times on charges of embezzling money, cloning credit and debit card, said police. "He then adopted a new technique and hacked into the bank's server and took away TK 9.60 lakh from two ATM booths," said the police official.

Officer-in-Charge Sadip Kumar Das said on November 17, 2019, the money was withdrawn from ATM booths of the bank's Chowmuhoni and College Road branches.

Due to the unnatural transaction, bank authorities filed two general diaries with Double Mooring and Chawakbazar police stations.

"During investigation, police came to know that, Tk 3.30 lakh were withdrawn from Cumilla's Kandirpar Pubali Bank branch booth on November 16, 2019 and Tk 10,000 from Narayanganj Chashara Bangabandhu Road branch booth on November 15 and 21 in a similar way," he said.

OC Sadip said Shariful and his associate tried to take money from ATM booths on June 22 in Chattogram but failed, which led to his arrest.

Inspector Jahir Hossain (investigation) of Double Mooring Police Station said, "Earlier, Shariful used to clone debit and credit cards but after his arrest in Dhaka's Banani by Criminal Investigation Department in 2018, he started hacking bank server."

He stands accused in seven cases filed in Dhaka, Chattogram and Cumilla. Several banks' debit and credit cards, card readers, keyboards, drives, and a locally-made pistol were recovered from his possession, said police.