ATM fraud glare on 3

Malda SP Prasun Banerjee with the seized ATM cards and the air
gun on Wednesday. Picture by Surajit Roy

TT, Malda, June 15: Three men, including a schoolteacher, were arrested with 150 debit and credit cards, eight mobile phones and an air gun while they were found loitering suspiciously in front of an ATM counter at Rathbari here last night.

Police have said they suspect that the trio are part of a larger ring which is engaged in ATM fraud but it is yet to be found out how they operated. The police also seized the SUV the three were using.

The arrested men have been identified as Prasenjit Pal, 35, Mohammad Masood, 32, and Masidur Rehman, 30. Pal is a resident of Dum Dum on the outskirts of Calcutta. The others are from Enayatpur in Malda's Manikchak.

According to the law enforcers, Masood is a teacher at a government-aided primary school in Manikchak, while the background of the others is not clear.

Source said a police patrol had seen an SUV standing in front of more than one ATM booth last night.

"We became suspicious as the same vehicle was spotted in front of many ATM booths. Around 10pm, the vehicle was near an ATM booth at Rathbari and three men were trying out different cards at the ATM. We apprehended them and recovered 150 debit and credit cards of different banks and eight mobile phones from them. The vehicle as well as an air gun were sized," a police source said.

Today, Prasun Banerjee, the Malda superintendent of police, told the media that it was not yet clear how the trio had operated. "It seems they use some means to draw cash from ATMs with cards. They are probably linked to a larger ring. We are examining the SIM cards in the seized cellphones and analysing the call records and the names in which they were issued. The case is under investigation," Banerjee said.

The three were produced in the chief judicial magistrate's court here and remanded in police custody for five days.