‘Withdrew large amounts through exit shutter manipulation’
Udaipur : In a major breakthrough Udaipur police achieved big success in nabbing an inter-state gang that tampered with ATM cash shutters and withdrew lakhs of rupees. Four persons all residents of Hisar, Haryana have been arrested and the gang confessed to having committed more than 50 withdrawals through a special trick called the ‘exit shutter manipulation fraud’. The amount that the cheats withdrew would be known once they are interrogated, police said.
The PratapNagar police met success in nabbing the accused within 3 hours of an ATM tamper report given by a SBI bank employee on Tuesday. SHO Pratapnagar Vivek SinghRao said a report was given at the control room from a bank employee who had gone to the SBI ATM at KalkaMata road on Tuesday afternoon. Taking swift action Pratapnagar and the special task teams rushed to the crime spot, spoke to the people and were informed of a gang that came in a red car.
Nakabandi was held in the entire area and teams set out in search of the thugs and nabbed two of them from the car while two others were hidden elsewhere, all four were caught within three hours. The accused arrested were identified as Sanjay Kumar, Bhim Singh, Deepak and Sanjay Ram who started off from Hisar on 30 May and arrived Rajsamand via Jhunjhunu, Kishangarh, Ajmer, Beawar, Deogarh and Nathdwara where they stayed overnight and on Tuesday reached Udaipur.The cheats committed the fraudulent withdrawals at many ATMs enroute Udaipur.
“The modus operandi used in the scam required precision during execution, but is simple in nature. The cheats used the exit shutter manipulation fraud. They would insert the ATM card . Once the PIN and requested amount were entered in the ATM, the process of cash dispensation would begin” Udaipur SP Rajiv Pachar said.
“To carry out the fraud, the accused placed a leaf-like device against the exit shutter. Cash gets dispensed, but the manual halt leads to the ATM displaying an error in the transaction,” the officer informed. Due to the transaction error, the ATM would automatically reverse the transaction. At the end cash never gets debited from the bank accounts and causes loss to banks and ATM service providers.