Suspected cybercriminals from Turkey have stolen huge amounts of cash in the Indian state of Tripura by cloning devices installed in ATMs, police said on Monday.
According to police, over 60 customers of different banks in Tripura, including the State Bank of India, have lost millions due to the fraudulent acts of cybercriminals and ATM hackers.
A similar incident recently occurred in the north-eastern state of Assam.
Tripura police’s cybercrime officer Sharmistha Chakraborty says that a preliminary probe points towards the involvement of Turkish nationals who withdrew millions of rupees from banks with the help of similar cloning devices to those used recently in Guwahati in the neigbhouring state of Assam.
We are collecting complaints from bank customers, from various police stations and different bank branches related to stolen cash from ATMs through ATM-cloning devices, the officer told the Indian media agency IANS.
“Our probe is on. If necessary, we would take help from other agencies of concerned States where similar crimes took place,” the official added.
Customers have been robbed of nearly $111,520 in the past few days in Tripura, local media reported.
Nearly 45 complaints have been received from customers, saying that they lost money due to ATM hacking, according to the State Bank of India’s Regional Manager Dibyendu Chowdhury.
According to media reports, over one-third of cybercrime cases comprise debit/credit card frauds while ATM card frauds comprise 200-300 cases per month.
In August, the “dark web” released the first batch of stolen credit card data dumps from an alleged point-of-sale breach at the US-based gas and convenience store chain Hy-Vee.