Their modus operandi is to tweak the ATM machine by causing a technical snag and decamp with the money with ease. The Tirupati Urban police who arrested the duo on Thursday were flabbergasted to find 99 ATM/debit cards and two mobile phones from their possession.
The inter-State criminals Arif Khan and Salim Khan, both hailing from Haryana, were arrested by the Tirupati East police, while Naqib Hussain, Ilyas and Haqmuddin are at large. The gang chooses an old ATM machine and enters a card belonging to a different bank. When the cash is released, they switch off the ATM machine and pull out the cash simultaneously, making it appear like a ‘failed transaction’ to the bank.
The accused then lodge a complaint with their bank, which passes on the information to the bank that owns the ATM. The correspondence goes on, with no solution in sight. They then deposit the cash into another account and choose an old ATM in another city to commit a similar crime again.
According to the Superintendent of Police (Tirupati Urban) Ch. Venkata Appala Naidu, the five resorted to the crime during their visit to Tirupati in October. The first two came to Tirupati again on Decemebr 2 and re-enacted the crime after entering into State Bank of India’s ATM at Ramanuja Circle in the city, where they were found to have stayed from 8.50 a.m. to 8.55 a.m.
Based on a complaint from the bank manager Ramesh Kumar, the Tirupati East Inspector B.V. Sivaprasad Reddy and Sub-Inspector G. Prakash Kumar browsed through the CCTV footage and arrested the duo on Thursday. Apart from seizing ₹20000 from their possession, they also got a freeze clamped on the ₹60000 in their account.
Mr. Naidu, who produced the duo to the media on Thursday, announced to send them to remand. The accused are wanted in two each cases in Tiruchanur and Tirupati East PS limits and one each in Tirupati West and SVU campus police limits, apart from in other cities.
