A constable’s perseverance helped in nabbing two men who adopted a novel modus operandi to steal money from older ATMs of banks across the city in the last several months. In older ATMs one does not have to swipe the card multiple times to do more than one transaction and the ‘time-out’ period is longer.
Police said the accused, Manoj Kumar, 26, and Munna Kumar, 26, would insert a small metal pin near number 0 on the keypad to disable it. When a customer enters the ATM kiosk they would remain inside on the pretext of helping him. They would figure out the PIN when the customer repeatedly tries to key it in after swiping the card. Once the customer leaves the kiosk, the two would remove the metal to release the keypad. If the transaction in the ATM had not been ‘timed out’ by then, they would key in the PIN and withdraw money from the customer’s account.
The Anna Square police had been getting complaints about money being stolen from ATMs since February. Following this, special teams were formed to crack the case. One special team member, M. Shankar, a constable from the police station special team, collected CCTV footage from different ATMs.
“After identifying the suspects, he waited outside the SBI ATM inside Ezhilagam on Kamarajar Salai. He did this for three months,” said a senior police officer. In the last week of June, a soldier lodged a complaint with the Anna Square police stating that ₹20,000 was withdrawn from the Ezhilagam campus ATM.
“The constable started monitoring the campus discreetly, and on Saturday spotted the two persons whom he had identified from the CCTV footage,” added the officer.
He nabbed them red-handed when they tried to withdraw money and handed them over to the Anna Square police station. On Sunday morning, the two were taken to the ATM and asked to demonstrate how they stole the money.
Graduates from Gaya
During interrogation it was found that both of them were graduates from Gaya in Bihar. One of the culprits said that he learnt this technique of stealing from ATMs from an online video sharing platform.
“They used to come to Chennai once in three months and stay in hotels. They used to do a recce of the city and identify kiosks with double ATMs that are old,” said a police officer.
The police are now checking if they have committed similar offence elsewhere in the State. Thomas Franco of the All India State Bank Officers Federation said such a technique could be deployed only in older ATMs. “One has to exercise caution while exiting the ATM kiosk. Always leave when a green light blinks around the card slot,” he advised.
