Kolkata bank fraud: Arrested Romanian nationals brought to city from Delhi
Kolkata, Aug 4 (IBNS): Two Romanian nationals, who had been nabbed on Friday from south-west Delhi in connection with the great Kolkata bank fraud, were brought to the city on Saturday, officials said.
A Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Kolkata Police on Friday late evening detained two Romanian nationals, who have been identified as Dumitru Calin and Oprea Ovidiu Simion, from a Bank of India (BOI) ATM in southwest Delhi's Munrika area and later arrested them following an hour-long interrogation.
"Based on their primary statement, we raided a house in the Vasant Vihar area, where they were staying, and seized several 'cloned' ATM cards, magnetic strips of ATM cards, ATM card cloning device, passports, mobile phones and sim cards from the location," a senior official of Kolkata Police told IBNS.
"Following the raid, we carried out another search operation at another house at Hauz Khas area in south Delhi where three more suspects, including two Romanian nations, were reportedly staying. Unfortunately, the suspects escaped before our officials reached the spot," the official added.
Investigators said that one of the arrested Romanian nationals confessed that he came to Kolkata months ago.
"One of them told us that he came to Kolkata and stayed in a four-star hotel at Kasba Prantik Pally area in East Kolkata Township from April 30 to May 7," a city police official said.
"We have collected all documents, including CCTV footage, to identify the Romanian national and to know about his activities as well if he met anyone in the hotel," the official said.
The duo was produced in a local court in Delhi on Saturday morning and brought to Kolkata on a transit remand.
"Our senior officers are currently quizzing them at Kolkata Police headquarter at Lalbazar and they will be produced before Bankshall Court today," a city police officer told IBNS.
Since Monday, at least 78 complaints of fraudulent withdrawal were registered with several police stations in Kolkata as well city police's Anti Bank Fraud section.
After beginning probe into the case, Kolkata Police formed a SIT and deputed a team of senior investigators to Delhi to bust the fraudsters' gang.
City police said that around 18-20 lakh rupees of at least 78 Kolkata bank customers were fraudulently debited from few Delhi ATMs.
Police identified three ATM kiosks- Punjab National Bank (PNB) ATM at Mullick Bazar, Canara Bank ATM at Golpark and Kotak-Mahindra Bank's ATM at south Kolkata's Elgin Road- where fraudsters installed a skimming device and micro-cameras to capture customers' ATM cards' details and to know confidential PIN respectively.
"They used 'cloned' ATM cards to debit money from bank customers' accounts," a city police official said.
Meanwhile, PNB officials claimed that money the process of money refund to the savings accounts of victim customers has begun.
"As many as 31 people- 19 customers and 12 employees and senior officers- of our bank registered complaints of fraudulent withdrawal at PNB's Mullick Bazar branch. We we have started refunding their money," a PNB official told IBNS.
Canara Bank's officers said that their money refunding process was in progress and it will be completed in the next few days.
Officials of the State Bank of India (SBI) said that they will install at least 500 'anti-skimming' ATM machines at its ATM counters across West Bengal.
(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)
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