Kanpur: The Sikkim police have caught 16 members of a gang who cheated banks there by tampering with ATMs. Of the 16, 11 are residents of Kanpur. While two of the accused are from Hardoi, one each is from Ayodhya, Rae Bareli and Rajasthan.
The gang was active in Gangtok for the last six months. Superintendent of police Gangtok, Tenzing Loden Lepcha, said that the gang was carrying out activities in Gangtok for a long time.
“The arrests were made on August 30, after Sikkim State Cooperative Bank’s manager Ujjwal Sharma filed a complaint. Based on the information, CCTV footage was procured from the various ATMs. Investigation has revealed that there are more than 40 people in the gang,” he said.
“With the help of surveillance, 16 people were arrested one after the other. Nearly 70 ATM cards, passbooks and other documents have been recovered from them. We have now sought details from Kanpur police of the Kanpur- based gang members so that their entire network can be tapped,” the SP added.
He said that the crooks used to insert ATM cards in the machines to withdraw money, but before the transaction could be finalized, they somehow tampered with the system and made it appear as though the amount was not cleared. “They would then complain to the concerned bank that the amount had not been received. The amount would then be refunded to their account and they would still have the additional cash in hand, which they had already withdrawn,” Lepcha said, adding, “While 16 fraudsters have been arrested, 26 are still at large.”
As per the preliminary report from SISCO Bank, around Rs 1.9 crore was refunded to these fraudsters in the past few months.
The SP said, “Similar cases have been reported in other parts of the country as well. As of now, we have received complaints only from SISCO Bank.” The arrested persons have been booked under sections 379 (punishment for theft), 420 (cheating and dishonesty) of IPC.
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