Khanna police bust 2 gangs of ATM fraudsters, 7 held

Kuldip Bhatia

Ludhiana, September 7

The Khanna police claimed to have unearthed two interstate gangs of ATM fraudsters with the arrest of seven persons who used to operate in Punjab, Haryana, NCR Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.

Giving information, SSP, Khanna, Gursharandeep Singh Grewal said acting on a tip-off, the police set up a checkpoint on Malerkotla Chowk and stopped a Baleno car (HR-28J-4278) coming from the Lalheri Chowk side.

Three occupants of the car, identified as Mohammad Wazid of Raneala Khurd in Palwal district (Haryana), Abbas, a resident of Rithora in Nuh district (Haryana), Altaf, a resident of Kherdla village in Nuh (Haryana), were arrested and charged under Sections 420 and 380 of the IPC. Eleven ATM cards of various banks and two steel hook type tools were seized from them.

Initial interrogation revealed that the accused used to insert the specially-made hook in the cash dispensing tray of the ATM once money was dispensed while withdrawing money from ATMs. Then they used to switch off the power supply of the ATM and take out the money and also remove the hook from the tray. Later, they used to lodge online compliant to the bank for refunding their money, which was allegedly stuck in the ATM. It was learnt that they had committed such frauds worth over Rs 6 crore at the ATMs located in Goa, Kerala, West Bengal, Delhi NCR, UP, Maharashtra and some other states.

In a separate operation, the Khanna police nabbed four members of another gang which was involved in duping people by cloning their ATM cards. The accused were intercepted from near Pristine Mall on GT Road on the basis of reliable tip that they were coming in a Swift car (HR-64A-7443).

According to the SSP, the accused persons were identified as Gulshan Kumar, alias Sunny, a resident of Sector 41-B, Butrela, Chandigarh, (now residing at village Dau (Ramgarh), SAS Nagar, Ranvir Singh, alias Manu, a resident of Noor City Society, Sector 48-C, Phase-II, Mohali, Sachin, alias Chandi, a resident of Garhi Multan village in Karnal district (now residing at Rishi Apartment, near Lohgar Road, Zirakpur, and Har Singh, a resident of Dabra Soral village in Almora district, Uttarakhand.

A case under Sections 420, 467,468, 471, 380 and120-B of the IPC has been registered against the fraudsters and police recovered 30 ATM cards of various banks and two ATM card cloning machines from the possession of the accused. The modus operandi of the gang was to clone or swipe the ATM cards of elderly or illiterate persons and then sell the ATM data.