Mumbai: The next time you decide to use your credit card on a shopping trip,think again.

The Mumbai police have busted a hitech credit card fraud whichthey believe is the crime of the future. Four gadget-savvy youngsters from Andheri, two of them software engineers,got together to earn a quick buck and ended up ripping off over Rs 3 lakh ofcitizens' money. The foursome were arrested by the Juhu police on Tuesday.Interestingly, one of the boys was all set to leave for the United State sfor a job in a wellplaced computer firm . According to the police, the mastermind of the gang is 19-year-old Leo Paul.A second-year engineering student at a Bandra college, Paul had read about amagnetic card-reading device which could store data once you swipe a cardthrough it. Data from at least 12 such cards could be stored at a time. Paulrealised that if credit cards were swiped though the machine, the personaldata of a customer stored on it could be accessed. He then teamed with AkashKamble, a 19-year-old Lokhandwala resident, and ordered the card-reader fromUSA, using the internet, since it's not available in India. "The boys befriended a waiter at Kings International hotel at Juhu to taketheir plan ahead. Every time someone ate a meal in the hotel and paid bycredit card, the waiter would discreetly swipe it through the magneticcard-reader, which is no more than 6-inches long and can be stored in thepocket,'' said investigating officer Ramesh Nangare. Once the waiter was done, he would hand over the device to Paul who woulddownload the data from the cards on to Kamble's personal computer. The duowould then feed the data into blank cards, available in the grey market. Thecards were now ready to be used in shopping malls and theatres, or to withdraw money from an ATM. Senior inspector Pradeep Shinde said that the boys forged information frommore than 22 cards in this manner. The fraud came to light after officialsfrom HSBC bank complained to the police. The cops quizzed customers whosecards had been duplicated and discovered they had all visited Hotel KingsInternational and paid by credit card. Investigators then caught the waiterwho led them to the four youngsters. Paul, Kamble and the two othercollegians identified as Manoj Chauhan (24) and Mahesh Valani (20), havebeen remanded to police custody.

NEW-AGE CRIME A portable magnetic cardreader can store data from around a dozen cards that have been swiped through it; made in China, the device was bought on thenet for Rs 18,000. The card-reader is connected to a computer and the entire data istransferred there. The data is then stored in blank cards available in the grey market. These duplicate cards can now be used to buy a fortune and also withdrawmoney from ATMs.