Editor's Note: This article, translated from QQ News, reports on a recent criminal investigation which resulted in the arrest of a small criminal gang. The group were running a complex bank card fraud operation based in Guangdong. Nanjing police seem to have gone to great lengths to help an older man who was the victim of bank card fraud, even traveling to Guangdong to check out ATM surveillance footage. The author also gives a few tips on how to avoid bank card fraud in China.

On December 9, last year, Lao Zhang received several text alerts from his bank while he was sitting alone in Nanjing, watching television. The alerts said that someone had spend 318,000 Yuan on his credit card in Suzhou. Lao Zhang was confused: he had never been to Suzhou. He quickly rummaged through his wallet, found his bank card, and dismissed the texts as a mistake.

The next day, Zhang woke up feeling uneasy. He went to the bank to check his account and was stunned to see that someone in Suzhou had in fact taken 318,000 Yuan from his bank account using his card. Zhang quickly reported the theft to the police.

The Nanjing Gulou Public Security Bureau said that someone could have taken his account information if they had had access to his card for a brief amount of time. Zhang thought back and realized that 10 days ago, he had used his bank card at a hotel restaurant in Gulou. The young waitress at the restaurant had taken his card to the front desk herself to help him pay. She had been especially enthusiastic about taking his card up herself to the restaurant cashier. Zhang could not remember anyone else who had recently handled his bank card. Police immediately concluded that Zhang's bank card information had been stolen by the waitress.

Fake Waitresses

The restaurant owner said that his establishment had recently recruited three waitresses. They had only worked for a few days, and then had resigned. None of them had not yet signed an official contract, so the restaurant did not have their information.

The police changed course, and decided to track down the stolen money instead. They found that Zhang's card had been used at a fake jewelry company in Suzhou. The jewelry company turned out to be a front, in which the owners took a cut for helping people commit bank card fraud. The police seized the company's POS machine and arrested the three owners.

According to the information on the company's POS machine, Zhang's 318,000 Yuan had been first transferred to a bank account in Hubei. The money stayed in Hubei for a few minutes and was then transferred to 16 different bank cards in multiple cities. The money was then taken out of the 16 cards 20 minutes later in Maoming, Guangdong.

A Layered Operation

Nanjing police traveled to Maoming and worked with local banks to successfully obtain security footage of the withdrawals. Several young men driving a Nisan used eight different ATMs in Maoming to withdraw a total of 318,000 Yuan by taking out money 16 times within 20 minutes. Each time, only one person got out of the car to make the withdrawal and the group sped off quickly after the transaction was made.

Police soon identified the four men who made withdrawals and the driver of the car. Gulou police arrested the men while they were boarding a tour bus, preparing to travel. The three “waitresses,” were arrested soon after. The four men confessed to copying and stealing Zhang's bank card. The driver of the car claimed that he was just responsible for chauffeuring the men around, and he did not know what they were doing.

Police learned that those involved in the bank card theft were part of an organized gang with clear divisions of labor. Those in charge purchase a POS machine, which is usually discarded after the crime is committed. Female members of the crime ring then find a job in a hotel or entertainment venue in a major city.

The women have false registration information and documents so that they are difficult to track down. One of them will use the bank card swiping machine to steal information from a customer paying with a bank card. She will copy the bank card information and secretly look at the guest when they enter their password. Then, they will give the relevant information to their associates.

Steal From the Rich

The associates will quickly copy the bank cards upon receiving the information. When the card balance is high enough, they will move the money and quickly withdraw it. If the card only has a few thousand Yuan on it, they most likely will not steal it. However, if the card has a lot of money on it, then they will move to the next step and transfer the money. Zhang's bank card was successfully replicated the day after he used it at the restaurant. However, he did not have a lot of money of his account until he deposited a large sum a few days later. The thieves only stole from him when he had a substantial amount of cash in his account.

To avoid such a scam, make sure your bank card never leaves your sight when you use it in a purchase. When you enter your password, make sure to fully cover the key pad.

Cards with data chips are also more secure than cards with magnetic stripes. Chip cards have more advanced data encryption and feature the use of personal passwords and mutual authentication. The cards are also more difficult to copy and have anti-theft software. 

Source: QQ News

Warning：The use of any news and articles published on eChinacities.com without written permission from eChinacities.com constitutes copyright infringement, and legal action can be taken.

Keywords: China criminal gang China bank card fraud