Their modus operandi is to tweak the ATM machine by causing a technical snag and decamp with the money with ease. The Tirupati Urban police who arrested a duo on Thursday were shocked to find 99 ATM/debit cards in their possession.
The accused, Arif Khan and Salim Khan, belong to Haryana. Three accomplices, Naqib Hussain, Ilyas and Haqmuddin are at large.
The gang chooses an old ATM machine and enters a card belonging to a different bank. When the cash is released they switch off the machine and pull out the cash simultaneously, making it appear like a ‘failed transaction’ to the bank. They then lodge a complaint with their bank, which passes on the information to the bank that owns the ATM. The correspondence goes on, with no solution in sight. They play the same trick in different cities.
According to the Superintendent of Police (Tirupati Urban) Ch. Venkata Appala Naidu, who produced the duo before the media, the five resorted to the crime during their visit to Tirupati in October. The first two came to Tirupati again on Dec. 2 and did the same at the SBI ATM at Ramanuja Circle, where they were found to have stayed from 8.50 a.m. to 8.55 a.m.
Based on a complaint from the bank’s manager Ramesh Kumar, the Tirupati East inspector B.V. Sivaprasad Reddy and sub-inspector G. Prakash Kumar checked the CCTV footage and zeroed in on them. Apart from seizing ₹20,000 from their possession, they also made the bank freeze ₹60,000 in their account.
The accused are wanted in two cases each in Tiruchanur and Tirupati East police limits and one each in Tirupati West and SVU campus police limits, apart from the cases in other cities.
