Skimming mafia steals from ATMs

Hyderabad: With multiple pictures including one of a foreigner surfacing during the investigation of fraudulent withdrawal of money from bank accounts of 13 customers of Canara Bank, the city cyber crime police is unable to find a link. The police suspect that the skimming racket could be an organised mafia.

As many as 13 customers of Canara Bank have lost Rs 2.23 lakh due to fraudulent withdrawals. Their debit cards were skimmed and cloned by crooks who placed a skimmer in the ATM machine, located outside the bank’s branch at Abids.

Soon after the complaint, the police started a probe and could get hold of the picture of one suspect. He had also placed an extra panel with a spy camera inserted on the keypad of the machine.

A police team went to Delhi, carrying the picture of a suspect, but is confused about the involvement of five more people.

The time and places of withdrawal of money were traced to Delhi and the money was withdrawn in five places. When the CCTV footage cameras at the ATM centres in Delhi were checked, five new faces have come forth.

“The suspect who put the skimmer at Abids was masked but he seemed to be a foreign national. The pictures of five suspects in Delhi did not match with the database available with the police there. One person was wearing a turban, another seemed to be hailing from Tamil Nadu and the other three were completely different,” said an official investigating the case. With this, the probe reached a dead-end.

Months ago, the Cyberabad police apprehended two Romanian nationals who indulged in a similar fraud. However, the suspect’s photographs did not match the Romanians.nor the other two, who fled the country.