TIRUPATI: Tirupati Urban Police in Andhra Pradesh's Chittoor district on Thursday busted a two- member interstate gang, which has been allegedly involved in ATM heists by creating technical glitches in machines and was involved in more than 700 tampered transactions in the temple city alone.
The accused were identified as Arif Khan (25) and Salim Khan (25).
The duo were part of a five-member interstate gang, wanted in six cases registered at various police stations under Tirupati urban limits and several other cases registered across various other states.
While two of the gang members were nabbed by the east division police, three offenders — Nakib Hussain, Hakumuddin and Eliyas — are still at large.
The police also seized 99 ATM cards, two mobile phones and Rs 20,000 in cash and also froze the bank accounts of the accused.
Tirupati urban superintendent of police CH Venkata Appala Naidu said that the five-members gang arrived at Tirupati in October and effected various bank frauds during the last one month.
“Arif and Salim once again arrived here on December 2 and swindled money from an SBI ATM at Ramanuja circle at around 8:30pm. Following a complaint lodged by the SBI staff, the east police, led by CI Siva Prasad Reddy, analysed the CCTV footage and zeroed-in on the culprits and arrested them at an ATM centre near RTC bus station on Wednesday evening”, the SP said.
“Since October, the gang members were reportedly involved in over 700 tampered transactions in different ATMs across the city and allegedly swindled Rs 6 lakh. Their main target was the outdated ATMs of SBI bank,” the Tirupati SP said, adding that the department will bring the issue to the notice of the Reserve bank of India and SBI so that they can upgrade the ATMs.
