Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)-Four people including a foreigner allegedly involved in an ATM skimming scam have been arrested in Bangladesh capital Dhaka.
“Three officials of local The City Bank Limited and Polish national Thomas Peter were arrested on Sunday,” Deputy Inspector General of Bangladesh Police Monirul Islam told journalists Monday in a press briefing, reports the Xinhua.
He said Peter admitted his role in one of the country’s largest ATM fraud schemes.
Some 36 customers have found their money was stolen from their bank accounts by the skimming card gang since January, he added.
Footage captured in the closed-circuit television cameras of ATM booths showed a man who appeared to be a white-skinned foreigner attached devices to the ATM booth of a bank.
The instances of ATM card fraud in Bangladesh have forced almost all the 56 banks to take precautionary measures, including temporarily shutting down transactions through the national payment switch (NPS), to safeguard the interests of clients.
Some 10 million cards are used in some 7,000 booths in Bangladesh.
Sources said the offenders have stolen information of some 1200 cards to withdraw money by creating duplicates.
The Bangladesh Bank has already instructed all banks to install anti-skimming devices, monitor the surveillance footage, and disallow third parties from repairing the machines.
BBN/SK/AD