The Delhi Police Crime Branch along with Mumbai Police has arrested a 25-year-old member of an international card cloning racket and have recovered Rs 8 lakh from him. The members of the gang are spread across Dubai, Mumbai and Delhi.
The accused has been identified as Pankaj Bhardwaj, a resident of Ghaziabad. According to police, a gang involved in cloning debit and credit cards has been active in Dadar area of Mumbai. Several such complaints were received from different parts of India including Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and some southern states of India that money was being withdrawn from their accounts from Dadar area of Mumbai through ATMs. Consequently, Mumbai Police arrested one Nisar while he was withdrawing money from one ATM in Dadar area. More than 20 cloned ATM cards were recovered from him.
“On interrogation, he disclosed that after withdrawal of money from different accounts, he used to send cash to one Sumair Sheikh in Delhi through a ‘hawala’ operator. A team from Dadar police station of Mumbai sought assistance of Crime Branch in tracing the accused Sheikh,” police said.
Accordingly, a team was constituted under the supervision of DCP crime branch along with officials of Mumbai Police. Information was developed and the local hawala operator was identified who confirmed that he used to hand over the received amount to a person on the basis of code words received from Mumbai. The receiver was identified as Pankaj Bhardwaj of Vaishali, Ghaziabad.
After he was apprehended, Bhardwaj revealed he used to receive the amount sent by one Nasir Ansari and some other gang members on behalf of Sumair Sheikh, who ordinarily stayed at Dubai.