BHUBANESWAR: THE mastermind of the hi-tech gang, which was involved in at least six ATM thefts by hacking into the software of the kiosks, will be brought from Madhya Pradesh on transit remand.
Shahid Qureshy, who provided the malware to rig the ATMs and necessary passcode to access the systems, was recently arrested by Cyber Cell of Madhya Pradesh Police.Commissioner of Police, Bhubaneswar-Cuttack YB Khurania said, the Twin City Police is already on the move for his production warrant.
The city police had earlier arrested two persons in connection with the case, and the duo had revealed that the malware was provided to them by Qureshy who operated out of Mumbai.After interrogating the two accused, Commissionerate Police had received information about Qureshy’s whereabouts and made two attempts to zero in on him but he had managed to evade arrest.
Khurania said, since the gang was involved in similar thefts in other parts of the country, police from about 10 States had come to Bhubaneswar to quiz Ajay Chaudhury and Krishna Gopal, the two accused, who were held in March. Madhya Pradesh Police too had participated in the interrogation.
After that police agencies of several States, including Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, had launched a search operation to trace Qureshy. He used to provide the malware which was uploaded to the machine. The malware allowed the system to go into the command of the remote user and helped override the currency withdrawal limit of the ATM.
The person, who was physically present at the counter, could then operate the ATM kiosk and dispense high denomination currency notes from the cash repository.
In Odisha, over `40 lakh was looted from ATMs in four districts. The Twin City police had seized six bank accounts with deposits of `8 lakh, a bank locker, a high-end laptop, a hard drive and three mobile phones from Chaudhury.