Hyderabad police suspect cash fillers' role in Logicash scam

Hyderabad: Police suspect that cash custodians booked in the Logicash case might have used the  ‘Dupe Increment’ technique to hoodwink banks by siphoning off the cash. The technique employed in the case is quite similar to the one by RCI Cash Management Pvt Ltd to siphon off Rs 9.98 crore in June 2016.

Explaining the modus operandi, a CCS official, who probed the RCI case, said, “They get the cash from chests of banks and RBI, which they take to ATMs. In the usual process, both cash custodian and chief custodian have separate passwords where they access it and open it with a key. Later, they fill the cash manually and type the amount of cash filled in the ATM manually. The same will be noted in the computer server of the bank. This process is called increment. In dupe increment, they fill only a part of the cash but type manually that the entire cash has been deposited and the same will be recorded in the computer in the bank. The banks will be under the impression that the cash has been deposited. But in reality, the ATM will not get the cash that was reflected in the bank books.”

The CCS sleuths said all ATMs have this loophole, which needs to be rectified in the future machines by manufacturing companies. “This will be detected only during a physical audit. Usually cash logistics companies or banks physically audit only a few ATMs in a city. In the RCI case, the accused used to get information on bank inspections in advance and they used to reshuffle the cash from other ATMs. The physical audit will take place usually after a month or so,” said the investigating official.

In Vizag, seven employees of Scientific Secur-ity Management Services, which loads cash into 128 ATMs of SBI, HDFC and a few others, siphoned off about '74 lakh cash  for converting black money into white after taking a commission of 25 per cent.