An employee of a security agency has been arrested along with his two friends in connection with the sensational theft of more than Rs.1 crore from over a dozen ATM outlets of Kotak Mahindra Bank on the outskirts of the Capital this past month.
The accused have been identified as Deepak Rana (28), an employee of Scientific Security Management Service (SSMS) Pvt. Ltd, and his friends Arvinder Singh alias Gulshan (28) and Bablu Kumar (25). The police claimed to have recovered Rs.92.50 lakh and some electronic items worth over Rs.1 lakh purchased from the stolen cash.
The theft came to light on July 31 following which the SSMS national manager lodged a complaint with the police saying that their employee Deepak had stolen Rs.1,14,68,900 from 13 of the 14 ATM outlets of which he was a custodian.
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During investigation, the closed-circuit television footage of one of the ATMs in Rohini Sector 3 targeted by the accused showed a young man standing outside the outlet while Deepak was stealing the cash. His movements seemed suspicious as he was trying to block the view of the outlet from outside. He was identified as Deepak's friend Arvinder and not found at his Tilak Nagar residence. His mobile phone was also switched off.Further interrogation revealed the involvement of Arvinder's friend Bablu as well whowas also found missing from his Pitampura house.Trailing the leads, a team under the supervision of Assistant Commissioner of Police (Rohini) A.K. Lall mounted raids in Ghaziabad, Najafgarh and several places in Haryana and Punjab, but the accused managed to give slip to the police. But they ran out of luck eventually and were arrested outside Maharana Pratap Inter-State Bus Terminus on Tuesday.
It was revealed during interrogation that Deepak along with one of his colleagues was the custodian of 14 ATM outlets of Kotak Mahindra Bank in West, North-West and Outer Delhi and the two were provided with six-digit access code each.The two were required to enter their respective codes together to replenish the ATMs, but they shared the codes so that they could replenish cash in the absence of the other.
On getting hold of his colleague's code, Deepak along with Arvinder allegedly hatched a conspiracy to steal the cash and they also roped in Bablu.
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“As per the plan, Deepak along with Arvinder, who works in Hindustan Uniliver Limited, went to Zirakpur in Punjab on July 16 and took a flat on rent to be later used as a hideout. A few hours after Deepak replenished the ATMs on July 30, he along with Arvinder stole the cash and escaped to Zirakpur. After staying at the flat for a few days, the two escaped to Jaipur and took along Bablu,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Outer) B.S. Jaiswal.