Four of ATM hacker gang held in Panipat

Tribune News Service
Panipat, January 9

Be alert while using your debit or credit card at any ATM as it might be hacked or a skimmer fitted therein.

 The police have arrested from Panipat four members of a gang of ATM hackers, including mastermind Amit Tyagi, an MCA degree holder hailing from Jagriti Vihar in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh.

Other accused were identified as Atul Beniwal of Mandavli village in Haridwar, Uttarakhand; Vikram, alias Vicky, of Matana village in Fatehabad; and Sandeep of Arjun Park in Najafgarh, Delhi. 

Atul Beniwal is also a postgraduate in computer applications, while Vicky is a diploma holder.

The accused were produced in a court that remanded Amit Tyagi and Atul Beniwal in three-day police custody, while Vikram and Sandeep were remanded in judicial custody.

The arrests were made by a CIA-1 team near a flyover on the NH-44. Holding some ATM cards, the accused were working on a laptop sitting in a car at the time of arrest. 

Details of some foreign credit and debit cards and banks were found in their laptop, the police said.

During preliminary investigation, they revealed that they were trying to locate some busy ATM in the city so that data of debit/credit cards used there could be stolen with the help of a skimmer, a police officer said.

“Tyagi has admitted to having links with hackers in Britain, Canada and the United States. They earned money by selling card data to them. They also purchased data from international hackers and sold it to hackers in India and other countries. The payment for these deals was made in Bitcoin,” he added.

A case has been registered under the IPC and the Information Technology Act.