Pramesh S Jain & Yogesh K Porwar
After a silence of one year,ATM thieves struck again targeting four kiosks of the SBI on St. marks road to use their novel idea of jamming the cash dispenser to snatch cash from the machine on last Wednesday.
The accused made as many as 65 fraudulent transactions to withdraw Rs.6.2 lakh making the mockery of the security deployment by the banks.
Though the incident occurred between July 4 to July 6, the officials filed a complaint on last Wednesday which according to the officials is to get back their lost money through insurance.
The CCTV footage installed at the bank campus revealed that the accused wearing helmet involved in the cheating .
The accused used different cards to withdraw cash and as soon as the cash was seen,the accused Jamming the cash dispenser to block the sensor at the time of dispensing the cash.
As the machine is jammed,the transactions would not be completed even if the money is withdrawn.
Using this method the accused had made as many as 65 transactions to withdraw the cash and filling his bag and pockets .
Shockingly no security personnel was around and when the police confronted the bank officials said that withdraw the security guards few months ago as it was decided in the annual review meeting that the security is not required for the ATMs.
Based on the complaint the Cubbon park police have registered a case of cheating and efforts are on to track down the accused based on the accounts numbers he had transacted.
It may be recalled that the then city police commissioner,Raghavendra Auradkar,cracked the whip on banks and ATMs and made it mandatory for them to deploy round the clock security , following an in famous ATM attack on 44-year-old woman Jyothi Uday was attacked with a machete by a robber at an ATM at corporation circle in November 2013.
The police arrested Madhukar Reddy and sentenced 10 years imprisonment.Following the incident the city police conducted audit on the ATMs across the city and given a list of guidelines to highten security said a senior officer.
