Four persons have been arrested for their alleged involvement in ATM frauds across the Capital, the police said on Saturday.
At least 88 victims had approached the police in west Delhi’s Tilak Nagar. Deputy Commissioner of Police (West) Monika Bhardwaj said the accused have been identified as mastermind Dharmender Saini (38), Siddharth (30), Sunil Kumar (36) and Mayank Shukla (27).
After several complaints, a case under Section 420 (cheating) of the IPC was registered at Tilak Nagar police station and a cyber team was formed, the police said.
Preliminary investigation ascertained that the victims have been cheated for nearly ₹19 lakh. During investigation, CCTV footage of the ATMs was examined.
“The crime appears to be a work persons holding criminal records,” Ms. Bhardwaj said, adding that information on criminals with a similar record was then gathered.
With the help of technical surveillance, analysis of dossiers and human intelligence, the four accused were identified and arrested, the police said.
They claimed to have recovered many items from the accused. “About 300 white plastic cards used for cloning and making new ATM cards, 85 used cards, 30 debit cards, 50 data cables, four plastic panels fitted with battery, chip and camera, 30 small batteries used with card reader, four wired card readers, a pistol, cars, laptops, mobile phones have been recovered from their possession,” Ms. Bhardwaj said.
Modus operandi
During interrogation, the accused allegedly told police that they used to recce the area and target ATMs without security guards. Mayank would enter the ATM and spray a chemical on the CCTV camera. “Dharmender would then instal the skimming machine with panel, including the memory card, battery and CCTV on the machine,” the officer said.
Ms. Bhardwaj said after the skimming machine was installed, whenever a person would withdraw money, data of his ATM card would be copied onto the machine and the password would be captured by the CCTV camera. The accused then made a clone card using the machine and withdraw money using it, the police said.
“The accused said they had tampered with machines in Dwarka, Mahipalpur, District Centre, Vikaspuri and Palam. Efforts are on to trace the complainants of these areas,” Ms Bhardwaj said, adding that accomplices of accused have also been identified and teams are working to nab them.
