Dubai: An employee was surprised to receive text messages stating that large sums of money had been deducted from her bank account and savings, even though she had not been using her phone or making any purchases.
Reports revealed a gang of six people who had stolen bank card data through a fake website and reused it for purchases and money transfers to digital wallets.
The Dubai Police General Command announced the arrest of the gang members, who relied on obtaining the victims’ bank card data and then using it to carry out debit and money transfer operations without the knowledge or consent of the cardholders.
A tip leads to the arrest of the gang
The case began with a report received by the General Department of Criminal Investigation in Dubai Police from an employee who was surprised to find sums of money withdrawn from her bank account, despite her confirmation that she had not conducted any financial transactions at that time.
The specialised teams began search and investigation operations and formed a security team to track suspicious activities, which resulted in identifying the gang members and their places of residence, before raiding them and arresting them.
Police found bank cards at the suspects' residence that they had obtained from their victims, in preparation for reselling them to other fraudsters, in addition to chequebooks that were used to facilitate their fraudulent activities.
Digital wallets and money transfers
Dubai Police explained that the gang members created digital wallets and bank accounts to receive money stolen from the victims' bank cards, and they also sold some card data to other people for money, to be used in carrying out fraudulent debit operations.
The gang members used digital wallets belonging to a telecommunications company to receive the funds generated from these transactions, in an attempt to exploit electronic payment methods to carry out their plan.
Warning about fake websites
Dubai Police urged members of the community to check the reliability of websites before entering personal or banking data, and not to share bank card details with untrusted individuals or entities.
It stressed the need to quickly report any unknown financial transactions through the 901 call centre, the Police Eye service, or the eCrime cybercrime platform available through the Dubai Police app and website.
It stressed the importance of early reporting of suspicious activities, which helps security agencies to uncover financial and cyber crimes and reduce their risks.