Robbers swap debit card, man loses Rs 80,000

Pune: Three unidentified persons exchanged the debit card of a 37-year-old employee of a private company based in Chakan, MIDC and withdrew Rs80,000 from his accounts.
A complaint in this regard has been lodged by the victim, Gajanan Bhimrao Warade of Medankarwadi, with Chakan police station on Saturday.

According to the police, Warade said in his statement that on February 26 evening he had gone to withdraw money from an ATM located on the Mumbai–Ahmednagar highway in Chakan. 3 unidentified persons arrived at the ATM kiosk and engaged Warade in conversation.

Police inspector Manoj Yadav said, “Warade told us that during the conversation the suspects had managed to exchange his debit card and also learnt his pin number. When he tried to withdraw money, he couldn’t. He was under the impression that there was some issue with the card so he didn’t get suspicious. Within an hour, he got 2 messages on his mobile about money withdrawn from 2 separate ATMs. Before he could gather himself, they had withdrawn money from his accounts.”

Yadav suspects that it could be the work of professional robbers who may have similarly duped others in the past.

“We couldn’t get CCTV footage of the ATM due to bank holidays. In next 2 days, we will get access to the footage which will help us to investigate the matter further,” Yadav said.

Yadav appealed to people not to reveal the bank details and pin number of their debit cards. “We have been conducting awareness drives, but people are still falling prey to such tricks. In the past, we had appealed to people not to reveal any details of their bank accounts, debit cards, etc but in vain,” Yadav added.