ATM fraudsters land in police net; over 50 cases solved

With the arrest of five persons, including an automobile engineer, the Crime Branch of Delhi police has busted a gang of ATM cheats and solved over 50 cases, police said on Sunday.

The accused used to target mostly the elderly people entering ATM kiosks to withdraw cash. They used to note their pin numbers and exchange their genuine card with dummy cards. The gang operated in south Delhi, said Ravindra Yadav, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime).

The accused were identified as Abbas Khan (29), Kamal Upadhyay (30), Arun Kumar (23), Sanjay Kumar (23) and Sandeep Dedha (24). Abbas was allegedly the gang leader.

Kamal holds a diploma in automobile engineering from a university in Punjab. He worked as the technical head in an automobile workshop in Noida where the gang leader Abbas used to come to get his car repaired. Later, he joined Abbas.

Except Kamal, the others in the gang were school dropouts.

On February 16, a woman went to an ATM kiosk at south Delhi’s Malviya Nagar. She reportedly faced some problems handling the machine, when a youth (one  of the accused) offered her help. Soon after she came out with the Rs 500, which she had withdrawn, she received an SMS informing her about another withdrawal if Rs 10,000. By the time she went back to the ATM, the youth had left. She was confused and reported the matter to the police on February 21.