KARACHI: A judicial magistrate remanded on Tuesday two Chinese nationals to prison in a case pertaining to stealing data from an automated teller machine (ATM).

The Federal Investigation Agency arrested Zhong Xianming and Zhong Xianquan when they were allegedly removing skimming devices and pinhole camera panel from an ATM facility of a private bank near Teen Talwar in Clifton.

The investigating officer produced the suspects before a judicial magistrate (south) and the court sent them to prison on 14-day judicial remand and directed the IO to submit the investigation report till next hearing.

The prosecution said that the suspects were illegally obtaining ATM cards’ data and transmitting it to different foreign countries for execution of international cash withdrawal transactions from ATMs, adding that more skimming devices, external hard disks and documents were also recovered on a lead provided by the detained suspects.

It may be recalled that another Chinese national, Xie Yie, was also arrested and remanded in prison in July last year in an identical case.

Published in Dawn, March 22nd, 2017