Han Ximin

ximhan@126.com

FUTIAN police busted a criminal ring that used refitted POS devices to copy the bank cards of consumers and defrauded 30 million yuan (US$4.35 million) from their bank accounts.

Thirty-three fraudsters were arrested, and nine laptops, 87 POS devices and 204 bank cards were seized.

Xiangmihu Police Station received a report from a Shenzhen-headquartered bank, saying the money in the accounts of two bank card holders, surnamed Li and Chen, had gone missing, even though they hadn’t lost their bank cards. In one transaction, 1.06 million yuan was withdrawn by criminals.

The police station received some other similar reports that involved more than 50 victims.

An investigation by a task force set up by Futian Public Security Subbureau revealed that all the victims had used their cards at a hair salon.

Police investigated the salon and found that the POS devices had been retrofitted. Police also found magnetic card readers and a pin code keyboard. According to police, the devices could automatically record the bank card information of consumers who swiped their cards to make payments. The suspects then could make duplicate cards, with which they could withdraw money from the actual card owners’ accounts.

In a coordinated action during the National Day holiday, police arrested 33 suspects in 17 provinces and cities including Tianjin, Xiamen, Shaoyang, Guilin, Jieyang and Shenzhen.

In the Shenzhen salon, the POS devices have collected 1,711 pieces of information on card holders, and the fraudsters have made 100 counterfeit bank cards since April 25, the first day when the POS devices were installed.

The salon’s owner said he wasn’t aware that the POS devices had been retrofitted and claimed that some people had introduced the third-party payment platform devices to them. He had used the devices because of their low cost and high profit return points.

“The suspects all had little education background except for their ringleader, surnamed Shen, who had graduated from a university financial accounting program. The suspects contacted one another via WeChat and the Internet, and completed a chain of scams by promoting the devices, making counterfeit cards and using the counterfeit cards in different places,” said He Shukui, deputy chief of Criminal Investigation Department of Futian police.

After the suspects got the card users’ information and forged the cards, they didn’t immediately withdraw money from the users’ accounts, instead they took a sudden action and withdrew a lot of money within several hours. On Aug. 31, the suspects used the cards to withdraw 2 million yuan.

“Not all the information on bank cards could be stolen. The cards with magnetic strips are more vulnerable and chip cards are safer,” said Liu Wei, a detective with Criminal Investigation Department of Futian police.

The suspects used the loopholes and promoted POS devices to businesses by pretending to be employees of a third-party payment platform company that banks, POS makers and third-party payment platforms weren’t aware of. They usually would take away the original POS devices, using an excuse that the signals weren’t good, and then retrofit the devices so they could copy information from bank cards, before returning them to the businesses.

(Editor Lily A)