Kolkata Police’s cyber unit arrested a 37-year-old man on Saturday for allegedly defrauding people by tampering with ATMs.
The accused identified as Mohammad Sahil, of Gulshan Colony, Anandapur, was arrested by a team of officers of the cyber police station.
Sahil, used to allegedly install a device in the ATM kiosk, provide a fake helpline number displayed inside the ATM kiosk, to trick people into revealing their PINs, the cyber police said.
“He would trap the card of victims by fixing an additional machine in the ATM kiosk and a fake helpline number would be pasted to the ATM counter. He would ask people to type their ATM PIN. He has committed multiple such crimes at Bansdroni, Thakurpukur in the last one month. Lot of material has been seized from his possession and further interrogation is going on,” said an official.
According to the police, the security features of the SBI ATM at Jadavpur stadium branch were compromised by an unknown accused. On February 14, complainant Arup Jyoti Pradhan’s Bank of Baroda ATM card got stuck in the machine at around 8:30 pm and he called the helpline number displayed inside the ATM.
“On instruction from the person on the other side of the helpline number and believing that following the instructions will help him recover his stuck ATM card, Pradhan unknowingly shared some vital and confidential details and eventually ended up losing Rupees 1,30,000/- that was debited from his linked bank account, in 10 transactions valued 10,000/- each, at around 22.57 hrs on the same day,” an official said.
A case was filed under sections 318 (4) (cheating) and 61 (2) (criminal conspiracy) of the BNS on February 15.
“Collating voluminous electronic evidence and conventional human source based information the accused was fixed up, a raid was conducted in different areas under Kolkata Police jurisdictions and finally the accused person namely Md. Sahil (37) of Gulshan Colony was arrested,” an official said.
The police have seized several mobile phones, ATM card reader, mobile holding slot, black cap, black/white colour full shirt, ATM card, helpline number printout, printout of SBI logo, one pitch board, one G-shock digital wrist watch, one metallic bangle, one sheet of printing sticker of SBI logo, plastic sheet with PNB banner with logo, black colour skybags backpack and one black spray.
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