the goan I network
MAPUSA
Mapusa Police late Saturday night busted an ATM skimming gang with the arrest of two Bulgarians, who allegedly fixed skimmers to ATMs belonging to banks.
The accused were identified as Ivo P Metchenov (47) and Milen Ivanov Davranski (45) and were residing in Arpora.
Incidentally, the second accused was in the process of boarding a flight to move out of the State and was apprehended at Dabolim airport.
A court has remanded the two accused to seven days police custody.
The incident came to light after a complaint was filed by Milind Purohit, Chief Manager, Bank of India, Mapusa.
“The complaint said that some unknown persons connected a skimming device to Bank of India ATM machine at St Anthony Apartment, Mapusa and stole valuable data of various customers who visited the counter and has used the ATM for their transactions,” police said in a press release.
CCTV footage was examined and police spotted a man fixing the skimmer to the ATM machine.
“The staff after collating meticulously gathered info identified the culprit as a foreign national and through sources apprehended the accused and subjected him to investigation,” police said.
A skimming device was found in the possession of the accused which was attached by the police.
The second accused, Milen Ivanov Davranski was apprehended at the airport while trying to move out of the State.
Police found one laptop, six mobile phones, a card reader, external hard disk, router and two skimmers in the possession of the second accused.
Police informed that skimmers are devices which are installed near the card reader of
the ATM, to capture data from the magnetic strip on the back of a debit or credit card.
Mapusa PI, Tushar Lotlikar led the investigation and was ably assisted by PSI Anil Polekar, HC Irshad Watangee and PCs Franky Vaz, Rajesh Kandolkar, Laxmikant Naik, Vijay Naik, Abhishek Kasar and Sarvesh Mandrekar. Police suspect gang may be involved in other ATM tampering cases too
MAPUSA: Mapusa Police are gung-ho over the arrest of the two Bulgarians which could help them in resolving other cases involved in defrauding customers by tampering bank ATMs in Mapusa and other places in North Goa.
Two weeks ago at least 40 customers had complained to Mapusa police of losing money after allegedly swiping their debit cards at a tempered SBI Bank ATM at Khorlim, Mapusa.
“We have strong reasons to believe that these two are involved in the other ATM tempering cases too. Further investigations will reveal more details,” a senior police official informed.
Several customers lost lakhs of rupees after using their debit cards at different ATM machines in Mapusa and other places.
These people received SMS alerts of cash being withdrawn from their account without their permission. Interestingly, the money was withdrawn from different areas in Mumbai.
