An official at the Ministry of Home Affairs has filed a complaint with the Delhi police saying that transactions worth ₹67,000 were made from her debit card in the US and that her card was cloned.
The transactions were made in dollars at a US apparel store, according to the police complaint filed by the MHA official.
The official said that she became aware of the fraud on the morning of June 7 when she saw several messages on her phone regarding transactions made at different US stores between 1:35 am and 2:09 am. She also said that she had received some OTP messages and alerts linked to the same debit card before.
According to a report by the Times of India, the complainant said that she had her phone and card with her the whole time the transactions took place and she only got to know about them in the morning.
While she couldn’t block the card herself, it was automatically blocked by the bank a few minutes later after they reportedly recognized the suspicious activity. She also received messages asking to authorize further transactions, even after her card had been blocked.
This is not the first time an MHA official has filed such a complaint with the Delhi police, with three to four officials having reported the same a few months ago.
The police suspect that the crooks may be using malware to collect credit card details, then creating a virtual card to withdraw money or make online transactions. Usually in the case of cloned credit cards, fraudsters use skimmer machines to copy card details while it is being swiped, which can be bought for as low as ₹7,000.
