Cyber crime: Three arrested for stealing petrol by hacking PSO Fleet Cards

Two suspects arrested for setting up illegal gateway exchange.

LAHORE:

The Federal Investigation Agency has arrested three men for stealing hundreds of thousands of rupees worth of petrol from Pakistan State Oil (PSO) by hacking its Fleet Cards.

Muhammad Haroon, Muhammad Ilyas and Muhammad Gulfam were caught as they tried to use counterfeit cards at the PSO station near Ittefaq Hospital on Ferozepur Road, said sources familiar with the matter. They were found and arrested by a team from the National Response Centre for Cyber Crimes (NR-3C) of the FIA’s Punjab chapter. The suspects were carrying six cards.

The PSO’s Fleet Cards are like debit cards that can be used instead of cash to purchase petrol.

The PSO had complained to the FIA that someone had found a way of transferring credit on Fleet Cards on to blank cards using digital devices and the company had lost hundreds of thousands of rupees worth of petrol to a gang in Lahore.

A case has been registered against the suspects at the Cyber Crime Circle police station in Lahore. Further investigations are underway to ascertain how much PSO actually lost through the counterfeit cards, the sources said.

Illegal gateway

In a separate case, the NR-3C arrested two men for setting up an illegal international telephone gateway exchange in Raj Garh, FIA sources said. The suspects – Sheikh Asad Aziz and Awais Butt – were involved in ‘grey traffic’ through two landline connections and 40 SIM cards of various mobile phone companies. They caused losses worth millions of rupees, the sources said.

The suspects had registered the landline connections under someone else’s name and ID card without their consent or knowledge, said the sources.

A case has been registered against them at the Cyber Crime Circle police station. Investigators are gathering details of the losses from the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority, they added.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 25^th, 2011.