KADAPA: Jammalamadugu police on Tuesday arrested a 43-year-old person for his alleged involvement in 56 offences of cheating elderly and innocent people visiting ATMs by withdrawing money from their accounts. The accused, Palagiri Mohammad Riyaz, hails from Chinnagottikallu mandal of Chittoor district.
In March this year, a complainant, 72-year-old Vanamala Chandramouli of Jammalamadugu town went to an SBI ATM to withdraw cash. Due to a lack of proper knowledge on using the debit card, Chandramouli asked the accused for help to withdraw an amount of Rs 9,000 from his savings account.
“While Chandramouli was heading back home, Riyaz advised him to take a mini statement. The victim agreed to the same and gave his original ATM card back to Riyaz. The accused, after taking the mini statement, handed over a duplicate ATM card to Chandramouli and stole the original one, which was of the same colour. Later, Riyaz withdrew over Rs 4.80 lakh from Chandramouli’s bank account using the original debit card at various places,’’ superintendent of Police KKN Anburajan said.
Jammalamadugu police began investigation by perusing through CCTV footage and tower dump data. After analysing the call data from the tower dump, they identified the accused and arrested him at KKL Cross Road in Jammalamadugu town and seized Rs 3.40 lakh cash from his possession.
“On interrogation, Riyaz confessed that besides Jammalamadugu, he had committed about 56 offences at Proddatur, Porumamilla, Badvel, Rayachoty, Mydukuru and Kadapa in Kadapa district as well as in Chitoor, Anantapur, Kurnool, Prakasam and Krishna districts,’’ the SP said. He explained that the accused would wait at ATMs for elderly and innocent people to withdraw money.