‘Cosmos Bank cloned card heist planned in Thane’

A 17,500-page chargesheet against nine accused in the Cosmos Bank online heist case said the criminal conspiracy to distribute cloned debit cards to withdraw over Rs 97 lakh from 58 ATMs, including 52 in Kolhapur and six in Ajmer, was hatched in Thane.
The cyber crime cell of Pune police said in the chargesheet that the accused received 109 cloned cards of account-holders from accomplices in Thane and used their Kolhapur and Rajasthan modules to withdraw the cash on August 11 and 13.
The chargesheet was filed by inspector Jayram Paigude in the court of judicial magistrate first class H R Jadhav on December 6.
Cyber fraudsters attacked the bank’s ATM switch server with malware to steal VISA and Rupay card data to effect transactions worth more than Rs 94 crore in India and abroad. Transactions worth Rs 78 crore were put through using VISA card details across 28 countries and Rs 2.5 crore transactions were done in India.
The fraudsters transferred nearly Rs 14 crore using the bank’s SWIFT platform to an account in a bank in Hong Kong. The cloned cards were used in Turkey, Poland, Russia, UAE, US and Canada.
Paigude told TOI , “We don’t know where the main conspiracy was hatched. Investigations show the fraudsters sold data and cloned debit cards were used to withdraw money from ATMs. We don’t know where the cards were cloned either.”
The SIT shared information about fraudulent withdrawals with 28 countries. “So far, 13 nations have responded to our request for information about the fraudsters. We are following up with them and the other nations. It will take at least two years,” Paigude said.
“We have identified suspects involved in cloning. We have launched a hunt for them. We will then know how and where the cards were cloned,” he added.
The chargesheet stated that accused Fahim Shaikh, Fahim Khan, Shaikh Mohammad Jabbar, Mahesh Rathod, Naresh Maharana, Mohammad Jaffri alias Ali, Yustis Vaz alias Anthony and absconding suspect Kunal Shukla had used 101 cloned cards at 52 ATMs of 31 banks in Kolhapur to withdraw Rs 89,57,500.
Other accused, Rafique Ansari and Abdulla Shaikh, used the cloned cards to withdraw Rs 7,70,00 from six ATMs of six banks in Ajmer, Rajasthan.