Woman’s card cloned, `2L used for shopping

The Kanjurmarg police is investigating a case of debit card cloning in which over `2 lakh from a city-based assistant choreographer’s account were used for shopping in Canada while her debit card was still with her. A similar case was reported in the Charkop area of the city last month, wherein more than `50,000 from a businessman’s account was withdrawn from an ATM in Great Britain. In both the cases, the victims had their cards with them. Investigators suspect that the accused somehow obtained details of the victims’ cards and with the help of the stolen information, cloned the cards and misused them. “Assistant choreographer Palavi Rane, 25, recently approached the Kanjurmarg police and complained that when she went to the CST branch of her bank for some transaction, she got to know that someone had used her debit card for shopping. When a shocked Rane obtained details of these transactions, she was informed that her card was used for shopping at as many as 12 outlets in Canada and total of `2.12 lakh was spent,” said sub-inspector Yogesh Thakur of Kanjurmarg police station. Mr Thakur added, “In her statement she told us that she had recently received a big amount after her insurance policy matured. She recalled that she had used the card at some places in the city before the incident. As her mobile was switched off for around five days due to some technical problem, she could not get the message alerts when her card was used for shopping in Canada.” “Someone obtained the information of her card in India and by cloning the card used it for shopping abroad. We are investigating on where her card’s information could have been stolen,” Mr Thakur said. A case was registered against an unknown person under relevant sections of the Information and Technology Act and Sections 420, 419, 467, 465, 468 and 471 of the IPC. In the Charkop case, `52,000 was withdrawn from the bank account of a city-based businessman.