Chinese suspected of ATM skimming held

KARACHI: Security forces on Sunday arrested 4 Chinese national involved in ATM scandal from Karachi's Defence area.
As per statement issued by the SSP East, law enforcers received a call early Sunday morning about a Chinese suspect skimming ATMs at Summit Bank and Muslim Commercial Bank in Tipu Sultan Road's Shabbirabad area.
The officials conducted raid and detained Chinese national. They also recovered ATM skimming devices, his ID Card, Passport, devices and Rs6 lac from his possession. The man has been identified as Xu Zhuping.
The security personnel told that as many as three accomplices of the suspect managed to flee the scene. Police are in the process of obtaining CCTV footage of the area and investigating the incident further, the statement said.
The latest arrest comes days after two Chinese men were arrested for allegedly planting a skimming device at a Habib Bank Ltd ATM in Zainab Market.
Earlier, Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) officials arrested four suspects involved in ATM skimming fraud in Rawalpindi, recovering skimming devices from their possession.
ATM skimming - an illegal activity in which account details are stolen from the magnetic strip contained on the back of the debit card has been around for a while and such incidents have happened, sporadically, in Pakistan as well.
It is worth mentioning here that ATM scams are on the rise in Karachi with criminals using technical means to steal money through skimming devices which is secretly placed just above the card entry point in ATM machines. The skimming device reads users' pin code and card data which is later misused to steal money.
To safeguard the depositors from fraudulent transactions, State Bank Pakistan (SBP) has issued specific regulations for the security of payment cards and internet banking, under which banks are required to develop and implement comprehensive framework for risk assessment, implementation of controls and monitoring. - NNI