An Army jawan fell prey to cyber criminals in the steel city on Friday.

Rajiv Ranjan Singh, presently posted at the Bihar Regiment's battalion 17 in Nathula Pass, is at home in Adityapur on leave. He had some Google Pay transaction issues which needed sorting out. He searched Google for the GPay customer care contact and came across a phone number.

"I dialed the number but my call went unanswered. Soon someone called back and introduced himself as a GPay customer care executive. I informed him that I was facing a transaction issue involving a few hundreds rupees. The person on the other end asked me to click a link that he would send immediately. I received a link on my phone and clicked it. A few minutes later I received an alert saying Rs 29,000 has been deducted from my bank account. I called the number again, someone picked up, abused me and hung up," Singh told The Telegraph Online.

Singh lodged a complaint at the Bistupur Cyber thana on Friday.

On Thursday, Bistupur Cyber thana authorities shut down an SBI ATM at Circuit House petrol pump after receiving a complaint about criminals decamping with thousands of rupees by tampering the ATM dispenser on Wednesday, This is the first time that such a crime has been committed in the steel city.

The same day, cyber criminals siphoned off thousands of rupees from Axis Bank ATMs at Jawaharnagar in Mango and Karandih in Parsudih, by cloning ATM cards of two customers.

Inspector, Bistupur Cyber thana, Upendra Mandal confirmed that the cyber criminals have once again become active in the steel city recently.

"We have received seven complaints of cyber crime during the past one week. We were successful in dismantling the network of such criminals in March by arresting three people and seizing card readers along with other equipment they used for fraudulent withdrawals. It seems criminals have become active again and deploying new techniques, such as tampering with ATM dispensers," Mondal said.

Singh further informed that fraudulent withdrawals are possible from older model and unmanned ATM kiosks.

"Banks have now installed new ATMs in which a customer can withdraw money and also deposit cash. The new ATMs are not possible to breach by cloning cards. Criminals have, therefore, evolved a way out to take out cash by tampering the dispenser. Once the dispenser is tampered, a customer will not be dispensed cash, although the amount will get deducted from their account," Mondal explained.

He said that police have shut down three ATMs after receiving complaints of fraudulent withdrawals and have asked concerned banks to provide them with CCTV footage from the ATMs in questions.