Duo caught trying ATM fraud in Mattancherry

KOCHI: The police nabbed two persons who tried to commit an ATM fraud in Mattancherry on Wednesday. The suspects have been identified as Amin Khan, 42, of Alwar district in Rajasthan and Riyaju Khan, 27, of Palwal district in Haryana. The incident occurred at the State Bank of India ATM located near the bank’s Kalvathy branch.   

The duo entered the ATM and covered the CCTV camera using a paper. Bank employees noticed this on the monitoring screen located inside the bank and alerted top officials at 8.53 am. They immediately sent security men to the ATM. Seeing the bank staff, the duo ran away but they were chased down by the security guards with the help of local residents.

According to police officers, the duo confessed that they had succeeded in defrauding banks applying the modus operandi of leaving a single currency note while withdrawing money from the ATM. This note would be taken back by the machine and later the accused would call the bank authorities and lodge a complaint that their accounts had got debited without dispensing the cash they had entered following which they would get the entire amount they had withdrawn “refunded”. To substantiate the claim, they would present the SMS they received while making the transaction.

They were found to have withdrawn Rs 10,000 from their accounts via the ATM in Mattancherry. However, police officers said this was no longer possible. “The accused confessed that they had succeeded in their attempts at various ATMs. They had convinced the bank officials that the currency notes were not dispensed owing to a system failure and in such cases, the respective bank invariably refunded the money,” said an officer.  The suspects would be subjected to detailed interrogation. The police took them to a lodge near Ernakulam South Railway Station where they were staying. 

According to the police, the duo reached Chennai on June 11 and were suspected to have committed 13 ATM frauds in Tamil Nadu, Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi. They had been earning money through fraudulent ways for the past six months, said police. The duo will be produced before the court on Thursday. Police have registered a case under IPC Sections 379 (theft), 511 (attempting to commit offences punishable with imprisonment for life or other imprisonments), 454 (lurking for house trespass or house break-in in order to commit an offence punishable with imprisonment).