Two engg students held for theft

Visakhapatnam: Habituated for easy money, two engineering students of Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh looted Rs 4.92 lakh from two ATMs of a bank in the city. The duo stolen the money on several transactions between June 24 and 28. However, with the help of the CCTV footage, the city police successfully cracked the case and arrested the both students on Wednesday.

According to assistant commissioner of police P Ramachandra Rao, the accused identified as Satyarath Mishra (21) and Swapnil Singh (22). The accused confessed that they were inspired by watching the YouTube videos on the modus of operandi of ATM theft in Gujarat and decided to execute the same to steal cash in the ATMs.

The accused managed to get a duplicate key of one model of ATMs to open the hood of the ATM. The duo had tried to commit the thefts in Delhi and parts of Odisha also. Using the debit cards of different banks in which there was some cash, the duo has found some ATMs in the city to commit the crime.

The ACP said that while one person would swipe the debit card and enter the PIN and others to withdraw some money another person by using the duplicate key render the ATM unit non-functional after hearing the counting sound and when the cash is ready to dispense in the upper trap.

Using the same key, they open the upper panel and make good with cash. Generally, the amount would go back to the inbuilt locker but in this case, the ATM will not show as a debit entry in the account holder due to transaction has failed.

The account holder will not get any loss, but the cash would go missing and loss to the cash loaders of the ATMs. The police seized Rs 1.3 lakh cash, gold jewellery from the accused, the ACP explained.