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Hackers withdraw hundreds of thousands of rupees from bank in Garhi Shahu
LAHORE: Adding to the rising numbers of ATM skimming frauds across the country, hundreds of thousands of rupees have been illegally withdrawn from nine bank accounts in the provincial capital.
With hackers stealing at least a million rupees from nine customers of the Habib Bank Ltd, Garhi Shahu branch within the past few days, the presence of the ATM hacking group in the city has been confirmed.
Speaking to Pakistan Today, Aqdas Salimi, a victim of the ATM fraud said that he at night received a message from the bank informing him about a transaction of Rs125,000 from his account.
“When I enquired about the transaction the very next morning, I was told by the bank manager that eight other ATM accounts prior to mine had also been compromised and I was the ninth victim,” said the distressed banking customer while adding that he then registered complaint number L/1465/2018 and FIA/NRMISC with the bank and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), respectively.
Habib Bank ATM Fraud Cases Controller Gulraiz told this correspondent that the illegally transacted amount was first transferred to another customer, Imran’s account, but upon enquiring from him and further probe it was revealed that the money had later been transferred to the culprits’ own account.
Speaking to Pakistan Today, FIA Deputy Director Khalid Anees said that a team was constituted for the earliest arrest of those involved in the fraud. He further told that the agency had sought the CCTV recordings of the ATM in a bid to identify the culprits.
On the other hand, FIA sources told the current ATM security system being used in Pakistan was as old as fifteen years. “It is owing to the outdated security system that ATM skimming cases are at rise across the country,” they said while adding that the FIA had advised the State Bank to upgrade the banking security systems across the country so that such attacks by hackers could be put an end to.
It is worth mentioning that falling prey to an ATM skimming fraud earlier, hundreds of citizens in Pakistan had lost millions of rupees in December 2017.
Following complaints that were registered with the FIA by hundreds of banking customers across the country, an investigation was launched into the fraud.
Moreover, several fraudsters including Chinese citizens involved in the series of ATM attacks were arrested by the authorities, while reports of the involvement of police as well as banking staff in the frauds had also surfaced.
While ATM skimming can be regarded as an identity theft for debit cards, scammers use different techniques to record the victim’s PIN code.
Some of the techniques used by hackers to access a customer’s bank account include sticking a fake card-reader on the ATM, placing a fake keypad on the machine to steal his or her PIN code, and the use of a hidden camera that records the PIN code entered by the customer.
