MADURAI: A serial thief, who was cheating unsuspecting people, mostly elderly, by swiping their debit card on the pretext of helping them withdraw money from the ATM, was arrested by the Madurai district police on Wednesday. The culprit confessed to stealing money to the tune of around Rs 6 lakh from many people at 18 places across several districts in the state.
According to police, the accused has been identified as M Dilliganesh, 28, from Kanchipuram. “The accused has been targeting elderly people and pretends to help them when they are at ATMs. He even waits for the victims to enter their PIN number and lures them into giving them their debit card for a moment.
He then gives an empty card to the victim and immediately uses the victim’s debit card to withdraw the cash for himself,” said V Baskaran, superintendent of police, Madurai district.
The 28-year-old man was arrested in Thirumanagalam after an elderly man reported the man of cheating him of Rs 10,000. He already had a case against him in Usilampatti for cheating a victim of Rs 40,000 in a similar manner. On investigation, it was found that the accused was a serial offender and has confessed to at least 17 other instances where he stole money by cheating people at ATMs.
The man has been travelling across the state and has cheated victims of Rs 5,30,000 using the same modus operandi across several districts, including Erode, Villupuram, Sivagangai, Theni, Pudukottai, Namakkal, Tiruppur etc., Police suspect that he could have cheated even more people.
