Prayagraj STF busts inter-state gang of ATM card cloners, four nabbed
During questioning, the accused revealed that they were members of an inter-state gang involved in cloning ATM cards of individuals whom they identified as illiterate or less educated and not savvy with the functioning of ATM machines.
The Prayagraj unit of the Special Task Force busted a gang of fraudsters involved in cloning ATM cards and withdrawing money from people’s accounts and arrested four members from Shankargarh area of the district, STF officials said on Friday.
DSP Navendu Kumar, circle officer, STF, said that acting on a tip-off, the STF team, along with the local police, intercepted four members of the gang while they were at ICICI Bank’s ATM booth located near Ram Bhawan crossing.
“The team recovered 36 ATM cards, seven mobile phones, one Aadhaar card, one fake Aadhaar card, two motorcycles and ₹16,840 including ₹16,000 that had been withdrawn using cloned ATM cards,” he said.
The four were identified as Rishikesh Pal of Bhuwalpur, Pratapgarh, Siddharth Kumar of Badhni, Pratapgarh, Rahul Pal of Tikri, Pratapgarh and Sanjay Kumar of Badhni, Pratapgrh, the DSP said.
During questioning, the accused revealed that they were members of an inter-state gang involved in cloning ATM cards of individuals whom they identified as illiterate or less educated and not savvy with the functioning of ATM machines. “They used to stand behind such individuals and note down their pin numbers. Then they used to clone their ATM cards on the pretext of helping them, and later, withdraw all cash from their accounts from different cities and states,” the officials shared.
On October 6, the gang members cloned an ATM card in Rewa district of Madhya Pradesh and shared ₹20,000 withdrawn from an account between themselves. They were again trying to withdraw more cash using the same cloned ATM card from the ATM booth near Ram Bhawan crossing when they were nabbed, officials said.
The gang was active across Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and had duped people worth lakhs during the past few years. “An FIR against the gang members has been lodged at the Shankargarh police station under sections 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (Forgery of valuable security, will, etc), 468 (Forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using a forged document as genuine) and 411 (Dishonestly receiving stolen property) of the IPC and further legal action is being taken by the local police,” STF officials said.
