A 40-year-old man from Ludhiana in Punjab has been arrested for allegedly siphoning off more than Rs 5 lakh from a nationalised bank by using its ATM outside its branch in Salt Lake’s CJ Block.
A team from the Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate arrested Johnny Goyal from near his home in Ludhiana on Friday, a senior police officer in the commissionerate said. The Bidhannagar cops were assisted by a team from the Punjab police.
An officer in the commissionerate said they had received a complaint in September last year from the senior manager of the CJ Block branch of the nationalised bank about the theft.
The manager had lodged a complaint with Bidhannagar East police station stating that Rs 5,23,500 had been fraudulently withdrawn from the ATM.
The detective department of the commissionerate started an investigation based on the complaint.
An investigating officer said Goyal used to withdraw money from his account using his debit card.
“As soon as the cash would come out, he would place a specially designed steel equipment in the dispenser. He would collect the cash and immediately switch off power supply to the ATM. He would then remove the tool and step out,” the officer.
“This technique would apparently fool the system into thinking that the cash had not been dispensed. Goyal would register an online complaint with the bank and seek the money which he claimed had been stuck in the ATM. The fraud came to the bank’s notice after an internal audit.”
Another senior officer said they were trying to find out whether Goyal was part of an inter-state gang involved in fraudulent withdrawal of money from ATMs across the country.
“Goyal has told us that he used to operate during a period when an ATM would not be visited by too many people. He would conduct a reconnaissance of the area before withdrawing money. We are trying to find out where he would park his money,” the officer said.
Goyal has been brought to the city on a transit remand.