Kolkata: People who fell victim to unauthorised withdrawal of money from their bank accounts due to skimming of plastic cards will get back the same amount within seven days.
At the same time, Kolkata Police has set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe into the crime.
It may be mentioned that 76 complaints of unauthorized withdrawal of money from respective bank accounts were lodged with the police till July 24. Investigation revealed that a total amount of Rs 20 lakh was withdrawn from various
bank accounts.
Soon, after receiving the complaints, police initiated a probe and identified two ATMs, where skimming of debit cards have taken place to extract card details of various people. One of the ATMs is in Golpark while the other is at Mallick Bazar.
Police have come to know that the members of the racket had fitted skimming machines at the swipe slots, where cards are inserted for transactions.
The details of the card get cloned as soon as it is swiped and the money is withdrawn.
The members of the racket got the card details of all the bank account holders who had used the ATMs in the past few days. Using the data of the card, the members of the racket later withdrew money from Delhi.
Three locations in Delhi were identified from where the money was withdrawn. There was a high-level meeting between the representatives of banks and senior police officers of Lalbazar.
It has been decided that the banks will be returning money to the victims within the next seven days.
Following a complaint with the police, a victim of such a case needs to fill up an application form and submit it to the bank authorities to get back their money. They will get it back within seven days after necessary probe. The bank authorities have been urged to carry out a thorough inspection of all the ATMs to ensure that no skimming machines are fitted and inform police as soon as they get any information in this connection.
Praveen Tripathi, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime), said in a press conference on Wednesday: "A SIT has been set up to probe into the cases."
The SIT is headed by Santosh Pandey, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Cyber Crime), and there are officers from Bank Fraud section and Cyber Crime Police Station. Kolkata police are contacting Delhi Police in this connection.