Cloned cards in Cosmos Bank online heist given out in Thane

PUNE: A chargesheet running into 17,500 pages filed against the nine accused in the Cosmos Bank online heist case said the criminal conspiracy to distribute the 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 the Pune police, in the chargesheet, said the accused received 109 cloned debit cards of Cosmos Bank account holders from their accomplices in Thane and used their Kolhapur and Rajasthan module to withdraw the cash on August 11 and 13, 2018.
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 Cosmos Bank’s ATM switch server with a malware to steal VISA and Rupay cards’ data to effect transactions worth Rs 94.42 crore within India and abroad.
Transactions worth Rs 78 crore were put through using VISA card details across 28 countries. Another Rs 2.5 crore transactions were done in India.
The fraudsters transferred Rs 13.92 crore using the bank’s SWIFT platform to an account in a bank in Hong Kong. The cloned cards were used Turkey, Poland, Russia, the UAE, the US and Canada.
Paigude told TOI, “We don’t know where the main conspiracy was hatched. Investigations show that the fraudsters sold the data and cloned debit cards were used to withdraw money from the ATMs. We don’t know where the cards were cloned either.”
The SIT has shared information about the fraudulent withdrawals with 28 countries. “So far, 13 nations have responded to our request on information about the fraudsters. We are following up with them and the other nations. It will take at least two years as the investigations will take time,” Paigude said.
“We have identified the suspects involved in cloning the cards.Their arrest will tell us how and where the cards were printed,” he added.
The chargesheet read that the 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.
Two other accused, Rafique Ansari and Abdulla Shaikh, withdrew Rs 7,70,00 from six ATMs of six banks at Ajmer. The chargesheet had details of the places where the accused met and how they travelled to Kolhapur and Ajmer.