BENGALURU: Two men from Haryana, who specialised in allegedly shortchanging banks by tampering with the power supply to Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) while drawing money, have been arrested. Yeshwantpur police are interrogating Shahajahad, 28, and Shahid 23, of Nuh in Haryana to know the extent of their criminal activities. They are suspected to have played the fraud at ATMs in several major cities of the country. "We suspect the accused have cheated banks of around Rs 25 lakh or more. Two more suspects are at large and we will nab them soon," said N Shashikumar DCP (north).
Police have recovered about 25 debit cards from the duo. The accused obtained the cards by opening accounts in the names of their friends and relatives. They led a lavish life and flew regularly in and out of metros, where they committed the crime, police said.
Shashikumar said the accused would target ATM kiosks with no security guards. One of the accused would walk in first and tilt or disable the CCTV camera, after which the others would step in. The fraudsters would insert the debit card in the ATM and opt for cash withdrawal.
"They would opt for sums like Rs20,000 or Rs30,000. When cash is ready for delivery, the ATM produces a beep for a few seconds, during which the machine counts the notes. Exactly at that time, one of the accused would disconnect the power supply to ATM, while another would grab the currency emerging from the machine," police said. With power disconnected at the time of cash disposal, many machines would fail to identify the transaction, police said.
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