B’luru: Rs 8.5L swindled from bank account by swapping ATM card; accused held

Bengaluru: A 32-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly swindling over Rs 8.5 lakhs from the bank account of a retired government employee by swapping his debit card.

The arrested has been identified as Mallinath Angadi, a resident of Yelahanka Attur Layout. Police seized gold chains, rings weighing around 75 grams, and a mobile phone from his possession.

On June 13 when the victim Ramakrishna Gowda used his ATM card to withdraw money but the transaction did not go through. When he went to the bak to enquire about, the same he came to know that nearly Rs 8,51,000 which was available in his account had been withdrawn using an ATM card. Following this, he filed a complaint with CEN police.

In his complaint, Gowda said that he had opened a deposit account in a nationalized bank and had received the debit card in May. He had then gone to an ATM center to activate his card. As a routine procedure, he was asked to generate a PIN for the card activation. At this time, a man entered the ATM kiosk and offered to help him. He helped Gowda generate the PIN and withdraw Rs 40,000. The man later handed over the cash and ATM card to Gowda.

Police investigating the case examined the CCTV footage of the ATM kiosk and identified the accused. Angadi had swapped Gowda’s debit card with a fake one and used the valid one to withdraw the money later.

He used the swindled money to purchase the gold jewelry and mobile phone, police said.

Advisory by police to prevent such frauds:

• Do not seek assistance from strangers’ while making cash withdrawals at ATM kiosks.
• Do not enter the PIN if anyone else can see the screen. Stand directly in front of the keyboard while entering the PIN in order to block the view of others.
• Sophisticated cameras used by scammers can still capture your details, thus use your palm to cover while entering your PIN.