Notorious inter-State gang arrested in Visakhapatnam

125 ATM cards, one swiping machine, ₹29,000 cash and a four-wheeler seized from the four accused, say police

June 07, 2022 08:39 pm | Updated 08:39 pm IST - VISAKHAPATNAM

The city police on Tuesday arrested an inter-State gang who had allegedly committed theft of ATM cards from elderly persons at ATM centres and withdrew amount from the cards causing loss to the tune of over ₹5.93 lakh.

The arrested were identified as Sandeep (36), Satvinder Singh (20) and Sachin (20), all from Bhiwani and Hissar districts of Haryana, and Shaik Ifrail (27) from Adilabad district, Telangana.

Sandeep, Satvinder and Sachin who are relatives, got acquainted with Shaik Ifrail, during hearings at a court for their earlier crimes. The police have recovered as many as 125 ATM cards, one swiping machine, ₹29,000 cash and a four-wheeler.

Addressing a press conference at Police Conference Hall here on Tuesday, Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crimes) D. Gangadharam said the accused had committed the crimes at various ATM centres in the city between May 10 and 12.

Explaining the modus operandi, the ADCP said that accused posed themselves as customers and targeted innocent, lonely, elderly persons and people who are unaware of how to withdraw cash from the ATMs. The accused purposefully would tinker with the ATM machine causing inconvenience to the customers so that they would not be able to withdraw the cash.

One among them would then pretend to lend a helping hand to the elderly and seize the opportunity to note down the PIN. During the process of interaction, they would take away the original ATM card of the victim by replacing it with a duplicate one. And once the person leaves the counter after failing to withdraw the amount, the accused withdraw the money using the original card by feeding the PIN. The victims would realise that they have been duped only after they receive the witdhdrawal messages in their mobile from the bank, the ADCP said.

Mr Gangadharam said that on May 10, the accused had assaulted an elderly man, who refused to give the ATM card at Kancharapalem.

The ADCP also said that on thier way to Visakhapatnam, the accused had committed similar offences in Nellore and Cyberabad. In Nellore, they have used card reader and card writers for cloning the ATM Cards. After collecting the data of the victim they had cloned the cards to withdraw the amount, he said.

Following instructions from Police Commissioner Ch. Srikanth, the crime branch had collected CCTV footage at all the ATM centres where such crimes had occurred. “We noticed two persons moving suspiciously on a two-wheeler, which did not had any registration number, at the crime spots. Based on technical analysis and checking the lodges, we have identified that four persons had stayed in a lodge near the railway station,” he said.

Police said the accused were arrested for the third time in Andhra Pradesh. During the year 2018, Sandeep was arrested in as many as 15 ATM cheating cases in Srikakulam district. In the year 2019, they were arrested by Nellore Police in an ATM cheating case, where they confessed to around 49 such offences.

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