PUNE: Pimpri Chinchwad crime branch’s investigation into last month’s arrest of two engineers on the charge of tampering and stealing cash from ATMs, revealed that they invested a part of the stolen cash in the purchase of a MHADA flat, besides, buying gold items. The police had recovered cash Rs66 lakh from the duo _ Manoj Suryavanshi (30), an electronics engineer who earlier worked with an ATM manufacturing company, and Kiran Bhanudas Kolte, a mechanical engineer notorious for cracking teller machines _ at the time of their arrest.
During the further investigations, the police have arrested their six more accomplices including an engineer and recovered another Rs6 lakh. The crime branch team led by inspector Shankar Babar has also recovered three motorcycles from the suspects.
Both, Suryavanshi and Kolte, hail from Jalgaon district in north Maharashtra, and have stolen cash from eight ATMs since December 2017 with their accomplices. Their last strike was on September 24 at an ATM in Dighi before they landed in police net.
The arrested suspects have been identified as Mahesh Devnikar (30) of Katraj, an engineer working with a cash refilling firm and the employees of the firm Sagar Taware (31), Tushar Chandgude (25) both of Baramati, Shankar Gaikwad (31) Purandar taluka, Ashish Bhalerao (22) of Chinchwad and Narsinh Dhumal (22) of Latur district.
Babar said that the gang had stolen about Rs 94 lakh in the past three years from the different ATMs. "The probe revealed that the suspect Suryavanshi who is the mastermind, had purchased gold ornaments worth Rs 10 lakh. He had mortgaged the ornament in a finance firm's Nidgi branch. We have recovered the deposit receipts from the firm and also Rs 50,000 more rom Suryavanshi," Babar said.
He said that the Kolte has purchased a flat worth Rs 12 lakh in Pimpri Chinchwad area from MHADA. "We have recovered the receipts of the purchase of flat too," Babar said adding, "We have recovered Rs 5.5 lakh from the suspects Dhumal."
Babar said that the remaining five suspects have spent about Rs 7 lakh on medical bills, on marriage and also for agriculture related work, Babar said.