ATM fraud: City resident loses Rs 80,000

GUWAHATI, Aug 22: Satish Talukdar, a resident of Udai Nagar near Koinadhara lost his hard-earned money in an ATM fraud. Talukdar only realized that he lost Rs. 80, 000 after getting SMS alerts within half an hour following the fraud withdrawal from an ATM counter in Guwahati through 3 transactions.

According to a police source, Talukdar visited the SBI ATM counter located at APSC Building premise on August 16 to withdraw some cash. Due to some technical disruption, Talukdar failed to withdraw his required cash. Taking advantage of the situation, one of the miscreants standing just behind Talukdar approached voluntarily to help him out in getting cash. Without any suspicion, Talukdar offered his ATM card to the miscreant. Apparently, the miscreant pretended as swiped two times and returned the ATM card to Talukdar saying that the counter was not working due to some technical error. Hence, Talukdar left the counter.

However, on reaching home after half an hour, Talukdar received SMS alerts of three transactions on his mobile phone – two times cash withdrawals of Rs 20,000 each and another online transfer of Rs 40,000. Hence, altogether he lost Rs 80,000. After getting the transaction alert on phone, Talukdar realized that his ATM card was actually altered.

Immediately, Talukdar lodged an FIR at Dispur police station and a case no 2361/18 u/s 420/379 IPC was registered. After a thorough investigation, the Dispur police arrested one identified as Sanjay Thakur from Santipur Rail Gate No 10 under Bharalumukh police station on Tuesday. In the meantime, the Dispur police also detained Sanjay’s room mate Chandan Thakur for further interrogation. Notably, Rs 40,000 was transferred to the account of Sanjay Thakur. During the search operation, the police also recovered another ATM card from Sanjay’s possession.