Delhi: ATM thieves held; Rs 15 lakh, devices recovered

NEW DELHI: An interstate gang of thieves that had installed ATM skimmer devices across multiple ATMs in the city was busted on Saturday.
The cops recovered Rs 15 lakh cash along with a cache of electronic devices, including blank cards, pinhole cameras, USB drives and portable batteries from them.
The four accused had recently siphoned off approximately Rs 18 lakh from 88 victims after targeting an ATM in west Delhi’s Tilak Nagar.
DCP (west) Monika Bhardwaj said the four men — Dharmender (38), Siddharth (30), Sunil Kumar (36) and Mayank Shukla (27) — came under the police radar last week when the victims complained about the fraudulent transactions being carried out from their accounts.
Police said that all the complainants used the same ATM in the area where the skimmer device was installed. They have registered a case and said that approximately Rs 17 lakh were siphoned off.
The cops analysed the footage from around the ATM and also looked for clues in the past incidents with similar modus operandi to zero in on the gang.
A trap was laid on Friday night following which the four men were nabbed. Interrogation revealed that Dharmender was the leader of gang, who was also an expert in installing skimmer devices and has over 20 cases registered against him. The gang disclosed that they had rigged ATMs in southwest Delhi’s Mahipalpur, Palam and Vikaspuri as well.
The accused would recce ATMs where security guards were not available and install the devices, which would copy the data of the target while the camera would be focused on the keypad to record the password. Later, the accused would transfer the data in a USB stick and create multiple copies to carry out fraudulent transactions.