3 held for ATM cash theft in Lucknow

The present employee of the company was the mastermind and took the help of two of his former colleagues in executing the theft by using the password, said police.

Three employees, including a present and two former ones of a company that loads cash into the machine, were involved in the ₹13 lakhs theft from an automatic teller machine (ATM) of a bank at Lucknow’s Indira Nagar, police said on Tuesday.

3 held for ATM cash theft in Lucknow (HT photo)

The present employee of the company was the mastermind and took the help of two of his former colleagues in executing the theft by using the password, said police.

“Two accused are from Kanpur and one from nearby Fathepur and this proximity helped them gel and plan the burglary,” said Qasim Abidi, deputy commissioner of police (north).

“They were identified as Naushad Ali, 26, Abhishek Kumar, 23, both from Kanpur and Aarif Khan, 25, from Fatehpur and arrested on Tuesday morning near Kukrail picnic spot,” said Abidi. He said 11 members team of Ghazipur police, crime and surveillance team of DCP (north) scanned CCTVs cameras and manual inputs to nab the accused.

“Out of 13 lakhs, ₹9.20 lakh have been recovered. Two ATM cassettes, and one Iphone have been recovered too,” he said.

Police had said the accused decamped with the cash after opening the machine by allegedly entering the ATM lock pin set by the firm aaround 11.48 pm on December 19. The theft was captured on the CCTV cameras in the ATM kiosk at Indira Nagar Sector B.

Police investigations revealed that Naushad who is still working with the custodian company had the ATM’s password. Police said Naushad knew the co-accused Abhishek and Aarif.

“Naushad shared the password with Abhishek and Aarif and carried out the theft,” police said.