ATM CARD FORGERY : Foreigner, 3 City Bank officials arrested [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

ATM CARD FORGERY : Foreigner, 3 City Bank officials arrested

Local February 23, 2016

A foreigner having ‘forged’ Polish passport and German national identify card and three City Bank card division officials were arrested on Sunday night and early Monday for their alleged involvement in the recent automated teller machine card fraudulence that led to the theft of over Tk 20.59 lakh in the city.
Metropolitan magistrate Mazharul Islam remanded the foreigner Piotr Szczepan Mazurek alias Thomas Piotr, City Bank card division managers Moksed Al Maksud and Rezaul Karim Shahin and executive Refaz Ahmed Rony in police custody for seven days for interrogation.
The court passed the order after Detective Branch sub-inspector Sohrab Miah produced the four before it seeking them in custody for interrogation.
The court rejected petitions moved by defence counsel Abul Khayer Khan seeking bail for the three bank officials.
Piotr opened his shirt and told the court that he was tortured in police custody following the arrest.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police investigators said that two more East Europeans escape the arrest before the investigation began while a London-based Bangladeshi was also involved in the crime.
The investigators said that Piotr was arrested at his rented house at Gulshan on Sunday night and he was a member of international crime racket involving nationals from Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Bangladesh.
Police arrested the three City Bank officials at their houses in the capital on early Monday.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police additional commissioner Monirul Islam told reporters at its media centre that the crime racket had been doing card forgery for a ‘long time’ but its members were not identified as they had forged international cards used by foreigners.
‘This time the racket was exposed as the cards belonged to local users,’ he said.
Monirul said that Piotr used to ‘clone’ the cards in collaboration with the bank officials.
Detective Brach senior assistant commissioner Nazmul Islam said that Piotr arrived in Dhaka on December 13, 2014 from Poland on a business visa and lived at Hotel Holiday Planet at Gulshan for six months.
He moved to a rented house at the diplomatic enclave after he had become involved with a receptionist of the hotel, said Nazmul.
He said that Piotr got introduced with the City Bank officials, among others, to continue their activities in Bangladesh.
According to the investigators, in the primary interrogation, Piotr said that he was born in Ukraine but claimed to be a German national.
Investigators said that he forged the Polish passport and also used to produce cards by skimming the information from the original cards in different techniques.
Monirul said that Piotr introduced himself as a manpower requiting agent and sent a number of Bangladeshis to East European countries.
‘But,’ he said, ‘Piotr’s main purpose was to cash-card fraudulence.’
Monirul said that Piotr and his syndicate also used call girls to steal card information from businessmen or wealthy men in abroad to clone the cards to withdraw the money.
He said that the City Bank officials, among others, were involved in the skimming and cloning of cash-cards.
City Bank managing director Sohail RK Hussain, also the chief executive officer, said that they were surprised to see their officials involved in the forgery. ‘Our team is providing necessary assistance to police investigators,’ he said.
Sohail said that the detained officials had been working at the bank for over three years.
He said they already installed anti-skimming devices on 30 of the 280 ATM booths of the bank.
Bangladesh Bank officials said that forgers skimmed data of more than 1,200 cards of 26 banks by setting skimming devices in six booths of Easter Bank Limited, United Commercial Bank Limited and City Bank in February 7-9.
On February 12, UCBL filed a misappropriation case with Banani police station stating that Tk 1.26 lakh were stolen from a number of its ATM booths through cards forgery.
Three other banks also faced similar ATM card fraudulence after forgers stole Tk 17.53 lakh by skimming data of 24 account holders of EBL, Tk 14.40 lakh of four card holders of City Bank, and Tk 40,000 of one card holder of Mutual Trust Bank Limited.