ATM fraud at 3 Prime Bank booths

A Chinese national was caught red-handed while withdrawing money using a forged card from an automated teller machine of Prime Bank in the capital’s Elephant Road, while skimmers stole money in that manner from three ATM booths of the bank, simultaneously, on Wednesday morning.
The latest incident arrives on the back of a series of monetary scams in the banking sector after a number of clients of three private banks fell victim to ATM scams in February, and $101b of Bangladesh Bank’s reserve was stolen digitally from its
account with the US Federal Reserve in New York.
‘The 38-year-old Chinese national, Jianhui Zou, was held with Tk 66,000 he withdrew from the ATM booth in the morning,’ said Major Ataur Rahman, a company commander of Rapid Action Battalion.
Three fake ATM cards were also seized from his possession, he said.
Over Tk two lakh was stolen from two other ATM booths of the bank at Panthapath and Farmgate, he said.
The incidents at Panthapath and Farmgate occurred in the morning, which was tracked by bank officials in the afternoon while closing the business for the day, Ataur said.
The bank officials said foreigners were appeared in the CCTV footage at the booths of Farmgate and Panthapath.
‘It appears syndicated skimming occurred simultaneously’, the bank’s alternate delivery channel division’s vice-president Rezaul Haque told New Age.
‘We noticed abnormal transactions at the booths of Farmgate and Panthapath while closing the day’s business in the afternoon’.
‘Upon analysing CCTV footage of the two booths we noticed foreigners withdrawing money around the same time the Chinese national Jianhui was caught in the morning, ’ he said.
The bank officials said Jianhui entered the booth at Elephant Road at about 6:30am. He made 10 transaction of Tk 65,000 with a card and another transaction of Tk 1,000 with another card.
The second card got stuck inside the ATM machine, which led to his arrest.
‘The man was taking too much time… Suspecting his behavior, a security guard detained him and informed the bank officials,’ said the bank’s Elephant Road branch manager Ali Mohammad Nurul Huda.
Upon inspection, his cards were found to be fake, he said.
‘The man offered me all the money he withdrew to let him go, but I kept him detained’, said a proud Dulal Uddin, the security guard.
Later, he was handed over to law enforcers.
Jianhui was able to withdraw the money using two ATM cards, which bore no account holder’s name, bank identification number and name or logo of the card issuing company like VISA or MasterCard, the bank’s alternate delivery channel division’s vice-president Rezaul Haque told New Age.
‘The cards were cloned’, he said.
The actual account holders were from the United States of America and Saudi Arabia, he said.
Rezaul said the ATM booths were allowed to accept international cards which bear magnetic stripes and all the victims were international citizens.
The RAB officials said Jianhui arrived in Dhaka on May 15. He was given an ‘on arrival’ visa for a month.
He recently visited Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Jianhui’s passport showed.
RAB’s company commander Ataur said they suspected that Jianhui was a member of an ATM skimming syndicate. He however claimed he was in Bangladesh as a tourist.
‘We are investigating whether he had links to the previous ATM fraud in February’, he said.
In February, a number of clients of three leading private banks in the country fell victim to an ATM scam as unidentified skimmers withdrew money from their accounts by forging their debit card and credit data.
The skimmers set data scanning devices on at least six ATM booths of three banks – Eastern Bank Ltd, United Commercial Bank Ltd and The City Bank Ltd – to steal money from the clients by cloning the card data of ATM users.
Following the incident, a German citizen who forged a Polish identity, Piotr Szcdepan Mazurek, and three Bangladeshis, were arrested by police.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net