2 held for duping elderly by swapping ATM cards
NEW DELHI: A gang of cheats that had allegedly duped ‘hundreds’ of elderly people by replacing their debit cards with fake ones in ATM booths and later used them to withdraw and transfer money has been busted by the Delhi Police.
Two members of the gang were arrested with 23 stolen debit cards and ₹37,000 that they had withdrawn from those cards. Three cheating cases registered in police stations at Govindpuri, Kalkaji, and Pandav Nagar were solved with the arrest of Sanjay, 25, and Imran, 22. Police have not shared their last names.
The duo were arrested on Wednesday from outside an ATM booth in Kalkaji area where they were waiting for a potential victim. Police were looking for them in a cheating case of July last year wherein they had withdrawn ₹50,000 from the account of a woman after swapping her ATM card in a booth in Govindpuri Extension.
Chinmoy Biswal, deputy commissioner of police (southeast), said the duo confessed to have committed more than 200 similar crimes in Delhi and western Uttar Pradesh in the last few years.
“They used to target elderly people and those having rural background, either by extending a helping hand to operate ATM machines on their behalf or just by shoving them in such a manner that the ATM cards fell from their hands,” said Biswal. He added that the duo used to note down the ATM passwords of their victims during their failed attempts to withdraw money using the swapped cards.
DCP Biswal said the arrested men transferred small amounts of money from the stolen ATM card of their latest victim to the accounts of any of their previous victims. Since they already had the ATM card of the previous victim, they used it to withdraw the transferred amount without being traced themselves.
“The whole exercise of diverting the funds was done to avoid detection by police and mislead them in the probe,” Biswal said adding the two had earlier been arrested earlier in similar cases. During their stay in jail, the two became friends with some pickpockets. They used to obtain ATM cards from pickpockets, which they stole along with wallets and ladies handbags.
During the interrogation, the DCP said, the accused revealed that they wanted to lead a comfortable and lavish life. Therefore, they entered the world of crime and reckoned this ATM card swapping as an easy way of earning quick money. “They spent the ill-gotten money on purchasing branded clothes, shoes and visiting high-end restaurants,” he added.