A sum of Rs. 60,600 has been siphoned off from two bank accounts of Dinesh Hegde, farmer at Kunda, a village in Tirthahalli taluk, by unidentified persons allegedly by securing his ATM card number and the password.
In a complaint filed with the Agumbe police, Mr. Hegde has said that a sum of Rs. 48,770 had been illegally withdrawn from his account in Syndicate Bank in Tirthahalli and Rs. 11,830 from his account at Karnataka Bank.
First call
On January 18, Mr. Hegde had received a call from an unidentified person, who introduced himself as an officer of Syndicate Bank assigned with verification of personal information of customers, and collected the information related to his bank account, ATM card number and its password.
A few minutes later, Mr. Hegde received another call, who introduced himself as an officer of the Karnataka Bank and collected similar information from him. Both the callers had conversed in Hindi with Mr. Hegde. When Mr. Hegde received SMS alerts on cash withdrawals from the ATM from his accounts, he realised that he had been duped.
ATM cards blocked
On his request, both the banks immediately blocked his ATM cards.
Based on a complaint, the Agumbe police registered cases under section 420 (cheating) of Indian Penal Code and Section 66 (B) of the Information Technology Act. Preliminary investigation has revealed that the money had been withdrawn from ATMs in New Delhi. A team of police officials from the district is likely to visit New Delhi shortly for further investigation.
As preliminary investigation has revealed that money was withdrawn from ATMs in New Delhi, team of local police is likely to soon go to national capital