Hyderabad: The city police on Monday busted three debit card fraudsters popularly known as ‘the Mewat gang,’ recovered 23 debit cards of various banks, and seized Rs 2.11 lakh of cash from the accused.
According to the police, 27-year-old Iqbal is a class 12 pass, running an online business centre at Dehli as he had basic technical knowledge. Ansari, 31 is illiterate working as a truck driver to transport vegetables, and Salaim, 31 studied Computer Diploma and works in an online centre in Delhi, both Ansari and Salaim hail from Haryana.
The Mewat Gang initially targeted big cities and towns, and choose unmanned ATM machines for their operations.
The ATM heist
They commenced their ATM heists by first sending in a gang member to operate the ATM machine normally using a debit card. While the first man is drawing cash from the ATM, a second person manipulates the ATM machine to create a technical error, and with the available tool, takes out the cash from the dispenser.
After that, they spend some time near the ATM and act as if cash is not dispensed from the cash dispenser. Then the accused lodges a complaint (through a toll-free number) alleging that they could not withdraw the cash from the ATM and that their transaction was failed.
The concerned bank forwards the complaint to the bank of the ATM, where the accused have operated. The bank on verification finds that the transaction had failed because of a technical error during the dispense of cash.
And as per the banking Ombudsman guidelines, the ATM bank has to pay back the amount to the customer as he is a ‘victim’ in a failed transaction.
The accused have allegedly taken a lot of advantage of this technicality and committed several ATM heists, by using several debit cards and claimed the money from the banks.
Hyderabad police, after a credible tip-off, busted the accused and seized Rs 2.11 lakh, 23 debit cards of different banks, a pen camera, two objects which were allegedly utilized for interrupting the ATM machine and three cell phones.
Hyderabad police said that the accused and seized material has been handed over to the station house officer, Nallakunta police station for further prosecution.