Four arrested for tampering ATMs and defrauding banks in Mancherial

K M Dayashankar

PEDDAPALLI: The Ramagundam Commissionerate of Police have busted debit card fraudsters who allegedly cheated the banks by tampering with ATMs with the arrest of four persons and seizure of 30 ATMs, four cellular phones, Rs 2.7 lakhs cash and a key used to open ATM.

The gang cheated the banks by tampering with ATMs at the time of withdrawing cash and claiming that they did not receive the cash. The banks then paid the gang for their claims of transaction failure.

Disclosing this to newsmen on Saturday, Mancherial ACP Akhil Mahajan said that following a complaint from a national bank in Mancherial town stating that they had found that the money was being disbursed from the ATM and it was not shown in the account of the card-holder.  Immediately, the police formed special teams and started probing the case by collecting all evidence of CCTV footage at the ATM centres and during the patrolling they noticed suspected persons moving in the Mancherial railway station.

Immediately, they arrested them and the accused confessed their names as Rabin Khan (25), Mohd Saheb (20), Hareesh (22) and Ajaz Ahmed (28) all belonging from Haryana state. They confessed that they had secured a small key from the USA to stop the functioning of the ATM while making the transaction which shows technical error after withdrawing money following the stoppage of the machine.  The gang enters the ATM and by using the ATM card they drew cash by using the debit card and others manipulate the machine by using the key to create a technical error.

Later, the accused lodged a complaint with the bank stating that they could not withdraw the cash from the ATM and their transaction had failed. On verification, the bank officials found that the transaction of the complainant failed due to a technical error during the dispensation of the cash. However, the bank officials on checking the cash and the transactions they found something mysterious and alerted the police.

The gang resorted to this act to meet the expenses for their lavish lifestyle and to make easy and quick money. They had planned to do these acts in Haryana state, but were scared of being nabbed so they chose Chennai, Nizamabad and Warangal cities by collecting the ATMs of their relatives and friends.

The ACP congratulated the inspector B Narayana, SIs D Kiran Kumar, V Praveen Kumar and N Devaiah, head constable B Diwakar, constables Brahmachary, Bharath, Srinivas for the detection of the crime and recovery of stolen amount. The ACP cautioned people not to hand over ATMs and bank account details to any person.

hindudayashankar