At least three city residents have approached police with complaints that amounts ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs 80,000 have been debited from their bank accounts, fuelling suspicion that they had fallen victim to skimming devices planted on some ATMs.
It is yet to be established whether skimmers were indeed used in the city, but such devices have been linked to rackets abroad. These are small machines that can be fitted to the ATM slot where cards are swiped.
They can copy data encrypted on the magnetic stripe, including card number, expiry date and CVV number, which can then be used later to clone the card, a police officer said.
All three complainants in Ranchi have claimed that their savings accounts with different banks were hacked into after they used a particular SBI ATM kiosk on Purulia Road.
Minakshi Kumari Ravi, a PhD scholar at Ranchi University, lodged a complaint at Lalpur thana on Wednesday, saying Rs 80,000 had fraudulently been withdrawn from her Canara Bank account in four instalments between September 15 and 16.
“Last Friday (September 14), I had withdrawn Rs 1,500 from the SBI ATM around 9.30am. The first fraudulent withdrawal happened at 11.26pm the next day. In less than 24 hours, I lost Rs 80,000. I live in Ranchi and the withdrawals were made in Delhi!” Minakshi said.
Khalid Jamil Akhtar, a resident of Kadru and an NGO worker, had withdrawn Rs 2,500 from the same SBI ATM kiosk on the same day as the student.
“I hold a savings account with SBI. Hence, went to the ATM on Purulia Road. Around 11.06pm on Saturday (September 15), I received an SMS alert that Rs 5,000 had been debited from my account. The withdrawal was made at an ATM in Delhi’s Munirka. I have lodged an FIR at Argora thana here,” Akhtar said.
Journalist T. Vijay Raghvan had withdrawn Rs 4,500 from the same ATM on the same day.
“I completed my transaction on September 14 morning. Between that night and the next day, Rs 69,500 were debited from my ICICI Bank account. The withdrawals were made at an ICICI ATM in Tupudana. I blocked my card and lodged a complaint at Lalpur thana,” Raghvan said, adding that at least nine of his acquaintances had lost money in a similar fashion.
Asked how cloned cards could be used since a confidential four-digit PIN had to be keyed in to finish the withdrawal, a police officer speculated that a spy camera might have been used to record the hand movements, from which the PIN might have been deduced.
“It appears that fraudsters may have installed a spy camera in the ATM that could capture hand movements as someone punches in the PIN. However, all this is subject to verification,” he said.
SSP Anish Gupta agreed that all three incidents had a similar pattern.
“We suspect a skimming device has been used. We are sealing the ATM kiosk in question pending further investigations. The bank should carry out technical inspection too. In the past, an ATM in Kotwali was under lens. We are asking all banks to review ATM security,” he said.
In 2011, the RBI had cautioned that the majority of cards issued by banks were magnetic stripe cards and data stored on such cards were vulnerable to skimming and cloning. Several banks are in advanced stages of replacing the old cards.
In Ranchi, there are 181 ATM kiosks run by the SBI.
Assistant general manager of the bank Sunil Kumar Gupta said all SBI ATMs were under CCTV camera surveillance. “Each is manned by a security guard. Also, we regularly conduct security audits. Customers can lodge a complaint at their respective branches and we will look into the matter,” he added.
Additional reporting by Monalisa Chaudhuri in Calcutta
