ATM theft link: Alert highway patrolling staff nab 2 criminals

NEW DELHI: When on a simple routine check post, two men on scooty tried to flee with one having multiple fractures on his legs jumped the 15 feet wall of the underpass, the Delhi police knew that it was something more than just the hiked fines of Motor Vehicle Act.

This made the policemen chase and apprehend the two men. The cops were surprised to find 19 debit cards from their possession along with more than near about two lakh cash. While Mohid was admitted to the hospital with multiple fractures, Gulam Mustafa was arrested from the spot at KM Pur in South Delhi.

The investigation in the case led cops to unravel another mystery of debit and credit cards.

“The criminals told us that a person used to meet them at some unknown places and gave them ATM cards with their PIN to withdraw money from ATM kiosks by using those cards and in the evening of the same day, collected the withdrawal money from them and gave their share to them,” said Atul Thakur, DCP South Delhi.

The police believed that this modus operandi is a part of a larger network where the money withdrawal at various ATMS by fraudulent means is outsourced by a gang allegedly involved in ATM card cloning or actively involved in ATM skimming.

The reason why the gang is not withdrawing money by itself rather outsourcing it to another set of criminals is to break the chain of investigation and dodge the cops. If at all the gadgets used in ATM skimming are caught in CCTV being fixed by a gang member, the cops might not relate it the same when someone else takes out the money using the cloned cards.

Recently, there has been a sudden surge in cases related to ATM skimming in various pockets of Delhi including South East Delhi's Jamia Nagar and Patel Nagar in Central Delhi.

Cops have now formed several teams to know if this ‘Mystery man' who used to provide debit cards to the arrested accused is linked to any of these multiple cases of ATM skimming and fraudulently withdrawal of money from the bank accounts of innocent people.