Insider breaches in restaurants is a global problem, but this may be the first report of its kind I can remember seeing from China. Ke Jiayun reports:
City restaurant and entertainment venue staff are among 51 people held in connection with a nationwide forged bank card network said to have netted nearly 10 million yuan (US$1.62 million).
Six people were held in Shanghai and 46 in southern China’s Guangdong Province in a joint police operation.
Waiting staff in restaurants and entertainment venues in Xuhui District and the Pudong New Area are suspected of stealing diners’ card information, including credit card and debit card, using special devices, said police.
Unlike situations where card numbers are used immediately, these thieves seemed to have done some research and bided their time:
Police found that account information had been copied last November when the victim used his card to pay at a local restaurant.
According to police, network members then discovered that their victim had bought a financial product that would bring him a big interest payment in March.
They allegedly waited four months and once the interest payment was deposited made two transfers using the forged details in March.
The restaurants at which the customer data theft occurred were not named in this news report and only one of the suspects was named, but reports that The suspects were held on May 20 and “More than 1,000 pieces of bank card information were found with 25 special POS machines seized.”
Read more on Shanghai Daily.