'Farzi' transactions: Patrons at CP cafe swindled of lakhs

An employee of Farzi Cafe in Connaught Place, who is now missing, has been booked for allegedly cloning debit and credit cards of customers and making transactions of over Rs 6 lakh.

On July 4, a complaint was lodged by HDFC Bank at Connaught Place police station, after the bank received several complaints from customers that their cards were being used without their knowledge.

"The bank got in touch with us in April, informing us that an employee might have cloned customers' cards. They also told us that cloning of cards is very common, and can be done through card readers that are easily available in the market. We carried out an immediate investigation and zeroed in on an employee who was missing for a month. We did try to contact him, but after making excuses for a few days, he became unreachable. We filed a complaint in April and have the receipt. The FIR has been registered now, after the bank filed a complaint," said a spokesperson of the cafe.

While the cafe says that the bank approached them, after which they filed the first complaint, police have claimed that the contrary is true.

A police official said, "After customers complained to the restaurant, they got in touch with the bank. After initial internal investigation, the bank filed a complaint in April, with details of the customers. We scanned the records of those customers and it is possible that it is a case of card cloning. Based on the bank's complaint, we registered an FIR against an ex-employee of the cafe on Tuesday."