Three ATMs, 76 victims and over Rs 20 lakh (still counting) missing, all in just 5 days. Bank customers in South Kolkata on Tuesday woke up to one of the biggest ATM frauds in the country.
Customers of Canara Bank, Punjab National Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank reportedly got messages that money had been withdrawn from their accounts from different cities. The victim count, reports say, could go up. As the news trickled in, it spread panic across the city with many queuing up outside banks to check if their money was safe.
It started from the Gariahat area, the scam has now spread to Sarobar, Park Street, Kasba, Behala, Tiljala and Beniapukur areas of the city with reports of frauds emerging with almost every passing day.
According to initial reports, a gang of five members worked for over four months to carry out the fraud. The fraudsters reportedly installed the skimmers -- a machine that copies the credit/debit card data -- at the bank ATM machines some time in April and July, and withdrew money in last week.
Customers have reported several withdrawals from ATMs thousand of kilometers away from Kolkata in Palika Bazzar, Kalka Ji, Hauz Khas areas of Delhi, Jharkhand and Haryana. Among those who have lost money, also include 10 employees of the bank and an AGM of a public sector bank.
"I was having dinner with my family when my wife suddenly received a text message that Rs 20,000 has been deducted from her account. Even before she could realise from where the money was transacted, in came another text of another Rs 20,000 being withdrawn," one customer told ToI.
There are number of such complaints where customers have lost their savings. “My home loan gets deducted on the 30th of every month. On 29th night, Rs 40,000 was deducted from my Canara Bank account in four transactions. I missed the loan repayment for no fault of mine,"said another customer.
The investigating agencies feel that skimming devices were planted on some ATM machines that copied the data and fraudsters used the data to clone cards and used the fake cards to withdraw amount from ATMs at other cities.
Banks have assured that the “money will be refunded to the customers within seven to 10 days upon submission of a copy of the FIR or police complaint”.
A special Investigation Team has been set up by the Kolkata Police to probe the case and the CCTV footage have been collected from the ATM locations. Going by the footage so far, a couple of persons wearing masks were found in some of the clips.