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ATM card cloning gang busted in Pratapgarh
The Pratapgarh police on Friday busted a gang of conmen who cloned ATM cards and siphoned off several crore rupees from bank accounts of customers, the district
The Pratapgarh police on Friday busted a gang of conmen who cloned ATM cards and siphoned off several crore rupees from bank accounts of customers, the district police chief said.
Pratapgarh superintendent of police Abhishek Singh said a SWAT team and the Mandhata police arrested Sahijanpur village head Praveen Kumar Singh, Brajesh Kumar Singh aka Chanchal Singh and Kaushalendra Pratap Singh of Lakhapur village in Pratapgarh after a tip-off.
A .32 factory-made revolver, magazine, a country made pistol, a laptop, an ATM cloning machine, an ATM card reader machine, six cell phones, a software CD, 10 ATM cards, some cash and documents were recovered from the arrested men, the Pratapgarh SP added.
Seven other gang members, including the alleged kingpin were still at large, the police officer said.
The arrested men revealed during interrogation that Ranjit Singh headed their 10-member gang, which was also involved in illegal firearms smuggling and their supply in Pratapgarh and the adjoining districts, the SP said.
The gang members were using a software and ATM reader device to clone ATM cards, the police officer said.
Ranjit Singh and one Ravi Patel arranged the blank ATM cards, which were cloned to take out cash, he said.
The gang was involved in ATM card cloning for 12 years in Pratapgarh and Prayagraj districts of Uttar Pradesh and other states in the country. The gang members have cases lodged against them in Madhya Pradesh.
Vipin Singh, the station house officer of Mandhata police station, said Praveen Singh was the village head of Sahijanpur and had acquired property worth several crore rupees in the last few years.
The other gang members on the run were identified as Ranjit Singh, Ranjit Saroj, Ravi Patel, Dheeru Singh, Gajendra Singh, Vinod Kotedar and Deepak Singh, all residents of Mandhata area in Pratapgarh.
