Pics: Spoorthi Ullal
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SP/ANK)
Mangaluru, Feb 24: Between November 2020 and now, culprits had fitted skimming devices in ATMs of Bank of India at Kulai, Canara Bank at Nagori and Capitanio, SBI ATM at Mangaladevi, Canara Bank ATM at Chilimbi etc through which data of the ATM consumers was extracted. Fake ATM cards were made with these details and money was withdrawn in Delhi, Bengaluru, Mysuru, Kasargod, Goa, Madikeri etc.
A total of 22 skimming cases were registered at the cybercrime police station in the city. In this connection, four accused have been arrested who are Gladwin Jinto Joy alias Jintu (37), resident of Thrissur, Kerala; Dinesh Singh Rawat (44), Prem Nagar, Delhi; Abdul Majeed (27), Koodlu, Kasargod; and Rahul T S (24), resident of Alappuzha, Kerala.
The accused
The skimming device
Police commissioner at the press meet
Screengrabs from CCTV footage
The arrests were affected by the cybercrime police inspector and staff under the directions of the deputy police commissioner (crime and traffic) and deputy police commissioner (law and order). Skimming device, two cars used for the crime, fake ATM cards, five mobile phones, two apple watches, were confiscated from their possession.
The total estimated value of things recovered from them has been put at Rs 25,00,000, a release by the police stated.
Addressing media on Wednesday February 24, police commissioner N Shashi Kumar said, “Accused Gladwin Jinto Joy is a BCom drop out and his parents stay abroad. Gladwin ordered the skimming devices online and used to experiment at various ATMs in different locations. Once his experiments were successful, he visited other locations, befriended hotel workers and auto drivers and formed a gang to withdraw money through skimming. Later, they would disperse to other locations.
“They used the money for lavish expenditures buying costly dresses, gadgets and spending money on girls. If the operations failed, they used to intercept people who would come to withdraw money at ATMs, snatch their money and escape from the spot. One of the accused in the case, Ajmal, who was trying to escape by assaulting the police, was injured. He is admitted to a hospital. We have an eye on him.
“The accused would closely watch when money was being loaded into ATMs. After half an hour, they would fix the skimming machine to the ATMs. Before the ATMs would be refilled with money again, they would withdraw money from various accounts. So far, they have withdrawn Rs 25 to Rs 30 lac.
“There are several ATMs where there are no security guards. Even though there is CCTV installed, there is no system where live monitoring can be done to avoid such incidents. In several bank burglary cases, we noticed that the CCTVs were not functioning since a week or so. The banks should also think about crime prevention along with bank expansion. The bans, expanding their branches, open ATMs in vulnerable places like small rooms with no security guards,” he said.