NEW DELHI: With the arrest of a 22-year-old youth, Delhi Police today claimed to have solved five cases of cheating ATM users by blocking the cash dispensing machine.
The accused, identified as Pintu Kumar, hailing from Jahanabad, Bihar, was arrested by the staff of Badarpur Police Station yesterday. Five cases of cheating of different areas in southeast with similar modus operandi have been solved, police said. On May 6, one Madan Kumar had reported to police that Rs 25,000 have been withdrawn from his account through ATM in three installments (10,000+10,000+5,000) at the same time and date.
A case was registered by police in this connection and investigation was taken up. Police observed that in the recent past, there was a spurt in the incidents of cheating at ATMs with users failing to withdraw money, but cash being debited from their accounts. During investigation, the police team verified the records of all those criminals had a similar modus operandi.
"Finally, we zeroed in on one Pintu Kumar who had earlier been arrested in a similar case. Yesterday, tip off was received that he would come in the area of Badarpur for committing the crime. A trap was laid and at about 12:40 PM, Pintu Kumar came there on a motorcycle with broken number plate and was caught," said DCP (southeast) Mandeep Randhawa. During interrogation, he admitted his involvement in several cases of cheating committed at ATM centers by blocking some buttons of the machine. He disclosed that he had learnt this modus operndi through internet on "ATM hacker video.com".
To cheat the ATM users, he along with his accomplice fixed (*), (#) and (cancel) buttons of the ATM machine with the help of pieces of blades and Fevikwik. After that, one of them remained inside the booth. When anyone used the machine, he noticed the Password of the ATM user. Since some buttons were already blocked, the machine remained hanged, he said. When the user left the ATM, Pintu released the button with the help of a pin and withdrew the money using the password of the customer.
They used to target ATMs situated in rural areas where mostly clients do not know how to operate the machine. They even asked their password and changed their ATM card very cleverly and as the client left the place, they withdrew the amount with the actual ATM card, police said.