Bangladesh customs seizes 1000 bank cards amid recent ATM fraud

Customs officials at Bangladesh's main airport in capital Dhaka on Wednesday seized 1,000 bank cards from a luggage.

Senior Customs official Riyadul Islam told journalists that the luggage was found on Wednesday at the airport's Cargo Village.

"We've searched the luggage and found 1,000 ATM cards," he said, adding that they are trying to ascertain where the luggage reaching the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka came from.

No one was arrested in connection with the seizure of the ATM cards.

The seizure of the cards from the unclaimed luggage came about a week after four people including a foreigner, who has been confirmed as a German national, allegedly involved in an ATM skimming scam have been arrested in Dhaka.

Some 36 subscriber have found their money was stolen from their bank accounts by the skimming card gang since January.

Footage captured in the closed-circuit television cameras of ATM booths showed a man who appeared to be a white-skin foreigner attached devices to the ATM booth of a bank.

The ATM card fraud in Bangladesh have forced almost all the 56 banks to take precautionary measures, including temporarily shutting down transactions through the national payment switch (NPS), to safeguard the interests of clients.

Some 10 million cards are used in some 7,000 booths in Bangladesh.

Sources said the offenders have stolen information of some 1200 cards to withdraw money by creating duplicates.

The Bangladesh Bank has already instructed all banks to install anti-skimming devices, monitor the surveillance footage, and disallow third parties from repairing the machines. Endit