Organised criminal gangs are cloning debit cards of bank customers using special devices and withdrawing money from ATM booths.
Members of these gangs would first enter booths by showing fake identity cards and set up microchip-enabled devices with the automated teller machines (ATMs). These devices, mounted with the ATM, would copy information stored on an ATM card when a customer inserts their card into the machine.
Later, the information copied would be used to make fake debit cards and later used to withdraw money from other booths.
The revelation came to light in the first information report (FIR) that the officials of the United Commercial Bank (UCB) filed with the Banani police station on Saturday.
Mahbub Ul Islam Khan, head of UCB’s Fraud Control and Dispute Management of Cards, Branches Control and Development Division, filed the complaint.
Abdul Ahad, additional deputy commissioner (ADC) of police’s Gulshan Division, told the Dhaka Tribune that the UCB authorities are also providing them with footage from the CCTV cameras installed inside its ATM booths.
However, for the sake of investigation, he did not want to disclose any detail about what they have found by analysing the footage.
The FIR reads that a person, identifying himself to the security guard as a technician from the bank, entered a UCB ATM booth in Banani at 10:42am on February 7 and installed a skimming device on the machine. Later, he collected the copied information, used it to clone cards and withdrew money.
Primarily, the bank has found that Tk1.26 lakh was withdrawn using cloned cards. In an immediate response, the bank has suspended all kinds of debit card transactions and notified the customers about it.
The UCB also said in the complaint that they had not been able to identify the criminal but the security guard would be able to do it if the criminal was brought to him. Moreover, the forger appeared to have attributes of a foreigner.
The bank requested the law enforcers to collect a still photograph of the suspect from the CCTV footage and circulate it to all the land ports and airports to prevent him fleeing the country.
When contacted, Maruf Hossain Sarder, deputy commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, said: “Along with regular police, our Detective Branch officials are also conducting a shadow investigation. They are also checking whether the suspect has any similarity with criminals previously arrested for similar cases.”
In July 2013, the DB arrested four in different parts of Dhaka for credit card forgery. They used similar technologies to clone credit cards and withdraw money from ATMs.
Interestingly, the prime accused of the gang, named Selim, was a young inventor and got Tk14 lakh as grant from the Science and Technology Ministry during 1989-91. Another accused Manzurul was an official at the Information Technology (IT) Department of the Mutual Trust Bank Limited.
Law enforcers said that the banks concerned also have some responsibilities in stopping such crimes.
When contacted, Subhankar Saha, executive director of Bangladesh Bank, told the Dhaka Tribune that some banks do not monitor the CCTV footage from their ATM booths regularly.
He also said banks are supposed to have the necessary protective measures in place such as anti-skimming devices.
“We will see whether the glitches are at the bank’s end and take necessary steps in this regard,” he added.
Meanwhile, following media reports on suspicious transactions at several ATM booths of the Eastern Bank Limited (EBL) in Dhaka, the bank’s head of communication gave a clarification of their stance yesterday.
The official said they were yet to find out exactly what technology was being used to in connection with the suspected ATM forgery at their booths which they are now trying to find out.
He also said that 21 individual cards were used to withdraw cash from the ATM booths of other banks.
“To safeguard cardholders further, we temporarily stopped EBL card access to other bank ATMs and vice versa.
“All EBL ATMs are fully functional and all EBL cardholders can use any EBL ATM and POS devices 24x7. We are closely monitoring everything and with consultation with Bangladesh Bank we will be able to revert back to inter-bank operation,” the statement reads.
The bank also advised its customers not to panic.