CHENNAI: A city police team arrested a suspect in the SBI ATM thefts from a hideout in Haryana on Wednesday.
Police said they had seized Rs 4.5 lakh from Amir Alimuddin who was arrested in Mewat district and would be brought back to the city.
The police team is camping in Haryana on the trail of more suspects, but an officer refused to divulge how they tracked Amir Alimuddin, saying “Our operation is not over yet.” The central crime branch of the Chennai city police has taken over the investigation.
The local police are trying to establish a link to the arrest of some men by the Haryana police, citing similar modus operandi.
Police estimate Rs 48 lakh was stolen through multiple cash withdrawals from 19 ATMs in Chennai and other parts of Tamil Nadu.
CCTV camera footage from a city SBI ATM kiosk showed two men making multiple withdrawals using a debit card.
The withdrawals happened on a particular manufacturer’s machine, Oki, which allows both cash deposit and withdrawals.
Cash dispensed is at the mouth of the machine for 20 seconds, if not retrieved the machine swallows it and the transaction is annulled.
In this case, the two would enter an amount to be withdrawn.
On the 20th second, they would quickly remove the cash and also jam the mouth of the machine, all in a flash.
When the mouth of the machine is jammed, it recoils and annuls the withdrawal entry though the cash has been removed by the masked men.
Repeated transactions across multiple ATMs saw them making away with Rs 48 lakh.
Since the Oki machine both dispenses and receives cash, the cash that gets deposited gets recycled.
So refills are done at longer intervals and hence shortfalls take longer to show up.
In a traditional cash dispenser, nearly Rs 40 lakh is loaded every time (extent of cash is dependent on the location — higher volume, more cash and lesser footfalls, less cash) and hence audited almost daily, sometimes twice a day.
SBI has suspended cash acceptance at the machines and has asked for a full blown investigation from the machine supplier from Japan.
Police said the ATM thieves had stolen Rs 16 lakh from the SBI ATM kiosk in Periamet, making 80 such withdrawals between June16 and 18.
Similarly, they took away Rs 5 lakh from an ATM at Saidapet on June 18 and Rs 1.18 lakh from the SBI ATM located on Raja Annamalai Road in Kilpauk.
The bank authorities realised cash was missing on June 19 when they went to the ATM kiosks.
Police suspect a big gang has reached the state to loot these ATMs.