Three held for installing skimming device in Kolkata ATM

The security guard of the ATM of Kotak Mahindra Bank spotted suspicious movement inside the ATM booth. He immediately informed the bank authority as well as local police.

"Three youths came to the ATM late night and one of them was doing something inside the ATM booth while remaining two were waiting outside the kiosk," ATM's security guard, Saifuddin Sheikh, told IBNS.

"After few minutes, I understood that they were not withdrawing money, but trying to install something on the machine," Saifuddin said.

"I immediately informed local police and the bank authority about the incident and caught one of them, who was installing the devices inside ATM booth," he added.

A city police official said that one youth was nabbed from the ATM kiosk while his two companions escaped the spot and were arrested later from Airport area.

"After being informed, a quick response team from Bhawanipore Police Station rushed to the ATM at Elgin Road and held a Mumbai resident, Rohit Kumar, though his two companions had fled from the scene before the police arrived," a senior official of Kolkata Police told IBNS.

"Based on Rohit Kumar's statements, we carried out overnight raids at few locations and arrested remaining two, Sahil Khan and Sudhir Ranjan who are the residents of Mumbai and Uttar Pradesh respectively, from Airport area later," the official said.

"We seized skimming devices, micro camera and memory card from the ATM booth and laptop, mobile phones, sim cards and few ATM-cum-debit cards from the arrested youths' possessions," he added.

The trio was produced in a city court on Wednesday and they were remanded to 14-day police custody till Aug 21 for further investigation.

"We are interrogating the trio to find if they have connection with the two Romanian nationals, who were recently arrested in connection with the ATM fraud," a city police official said.

"We are also trying to know in how many ATMs they installed such skimming devices before and since when they have been staying in Kolkata," he added.

On Sunday, acting on a bank customer's complaint, police recovered a skimmer-like device and micro camera from IndusInd Bank's ATM at Bakultala area under Kasba Police Station limits in East Kolkata Township.

"Our technical experts have not confirmed yet that the device, which was seized from a private sector bank's ATM in Kasba, is a card skimmer as no magnetic strip was found in it," a police official said.

"After examining the CCTV footage of the ATM booth, we have identified two local men who possibly installed the device on the machine and we are looking for the suspects," he added.

Since July 30, at least 78 complaints of fraudulent withdrawal were registered with several police stations in Kolkata and city police's Anti Bank Fraud section.

City police said that around 18-20 lakh rupees of at least 78 Kolkata bank customers were fraudulently debited from few Delhi ATMs.

After beginning probe into the case, Kolkata Police had formed a SIT and deputed a team of senior investigators to Delhi to bust the fraudsters' gang while investigators identified few ATM booths across the city from where bank customers' ATM cards were skimmed and their data were hacked.

Two Romanian nations, Dumitru Calin and Oprea Ovidiu Simion, were arrested by Kolkata Police's SIT on Aug 3 late evening from south-west Delhi's Munrika area for their direct involvement in the fraud.

These Romanian nationals are currently in city police's custody till Aug 17.

"We have come to know that they had installed skimmer in few more ATM booths in city's few busy areas, including Kasba and New Market," an investigator told IBNS.

"We are quizzing them to bust their entire gang," he added.

Meanwhile, after Punjab National Bank (PNB)'s Mullick Bazar branch, officials of Canara Bank's Gariahat branch on Tuesday claimed that they had completed the refund process to the accounts of their victim customers.

(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha ; Representational image of Kotak Mahindra Bank ATM)