Monday, 11 SEPTEMBER 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The Dehradun police claimed to have arrested four members of an inter-State gang that allegedly stole lakhs of rupees in several States by using master keys in ATMs. The gang used to target the ATM booths without security guards to steal money, said the Dehradun senior superintendent of police Daleep Singh Kunwar. He said that the police received information on Saturday that some men had allegedly stolen cash from many ATMs in the Doiwala area and were taking it somewhere in cars belonging to Haryana and Delhi. Upon getting the information, a police team was formed to nab the thieves. The police started checking near Song river bridge and found four accused in two different cars. The four accused have been identified as Amit Kumar, Sunil Kumar, Shivam Singh and Honey Singh. The police also recovered cash of Rs 2.7 lakh, four master keys, black fiber strips, five ATM cards and other items from their possession. The accused told the police that they use these black fiber strips to steal money withdrawn by people. “They said that they use a black fibre strip and attach it to the space from where the money comes out in an ATM. Due to this, when a person withdraws money from the ATM, the money is deducted from his/her account but the notes get stuck and do to come out of the ATM. When the person goes outside, one of their members hiding inside the ATM booth removes the notes stuck there using the counterfeit master key and reinstalls the black tape again. Other members keep an eye on people outside the ATM,” said Kunwar. He said that the gang leader Amit who belongs to Delhi told the Police that once he found a key in an ATM in Rajasthan and when he tried that same key in the other ATM of the same agency, it purportedly worked. The SSP said, “He has claimed that after this incident, he prepared the keys of the ATMs operated by other agencies and started withdrawing money. Initially, he withdrew money from Delhi but after that, he included more people in his gang in the past four years. According to him, they have done such thefts in Delhi, Rajasthan, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. This was the first time they had arrived in Uttarakhand to steal from ATMs as there were multiple bank holidays. They had planned to start stealing money from Doiwala and Rishikesh. They stole money from five ATMs as per their plan but the police nabbed them on Saturday.” They had already installed black strips in some ATMs in Doiwala and were planning to collect money from there as well but the police arrested them. Praising the police team for nabbing such cunning thieves, Kunwar announced a reward of Rs 20,000 for the team. He said that two members of the gang are absconding and will be nabbed soon.
