Five held in Kanpur for fleecing banks in ATM fraud

Lucknow: Five youths arrested in Kanpur on Wednesday for ATM fraud, revealed on Thursday that they had duped various banks of millions by manipulating ATM cash transactions.

Circle officer of Swaroopnagar in Kanpur Ajeet Singh Chauhan said that around 130 debit/credit cards, several passbooks and cheque books, Rs 1.23 lakh cash, seven mobile phones and a laptop were recovered from the accused.

Those arrested were Kapil Kumar Verma, Matthew Charles, Abhijeet Singh, Mohit Gautam and Anuj Tiwari, while kingpin Gaurav Thakur is on the run. Barring Abhijit, who comes from Hardoi, all the accused belong to Kanpur and are arts graduates. They used to operate in several districts. In Lucknow, they had targeted over a dozen ATMs of several banks.

The debit and credit cards recovered from the accused were on different names. They confessed that they had borrowed them from economically weaker people by paying some money.

The accused adopted three ways to manipulate ATMs by using borrowed debit/credit cards. In the first method, they used to enter the amount to be withdrawn and the PIN but would press the shutter covering the money dispenser as the ATM was about to dispense the cash. On detecting a closed shutter, the machine sends a message of ‘failed transaction’ to the centralised server of the bank. However, the fraudsters would open the shutter just before the machine was to reverse the cash. At this crucial moment, they would pull the notes from the dispenser even as the machine would record a failed transaction.

The bank officials got to know when they found that the amount withdrawn was more than what the machine was showing.

Similarly, in some cases, the miscreants would wait for cash to be dispensed but not pick it till the last moment before it was reversed, sending an error message.

The third way was to remove the communication cable between the ATM and central server just before cash was dispensed. The machine would record the error message but money was dispensed.

Police said these tricks were only possible in a few old models of ATMs which the gang would target. They also ensured that no guard was around.

The accused told police they had learnt the tricks from employees of private companies which load money in ATMs.

“After receiving several complaints, we scanned CCTV footage of ATMs and zeroed in on the suspects to arrest them,” said Chauhan.