Post-demonetisation cash chaos: 3 held for installing card-reading devices in POS machines

Goa police on Saturday arrested three persons hailing from Uttar Pradesh who allegedly installed card-reading devices in point of sale (POS) machines at Calangute beach village.

“Cybercrime cell of Goa police arrested Ramesh Chauhan (46), Alihusain Asad Galli (21) and Abhishekh Singh (29). They were apprehended from Calangute with debit/credit card skimmers when they were looking for prospective outlets to deploy these,” Deputy Inspector General Vimal Gupta told reporters on Saturday.

He said the cybercrime acted on a tip-off received by Deputy Superintendent of Police Nelson Albuquerque.

“The Cybercrime police station was assisted by Calangute police station during the raid,” Gupta said.

Police have attached two skimmers, one laptop, four mobile phones, two pen drives and seven debit cards and other articles from the accused.

Whenever a customer swiped a debit or credit card in such machines, they recorded the card data along with the Personal Identification Number, a police officer said.

“The Cybercrime police recovered a skimmer from the possession of arrested accused and others from the place where it was installed. The recovered skimmer look very similar to a genuine POS terminal that is credit/debit card swiping machine and cannot be identified as a skimmer by a layman,” Gupta said.

A case under section 420 (cheating) of IPC and section 66 of IT Act has been registered in this regard, police said, adding a probe was underway.