The crime wing of Gajuwaka police arrested a 37-year-old man from West Bengal for allegedly swindling money from bank accounts of persons visiting ATMs, under the pretext of helping them, by swapping ATM debit cards. The arrested has been identified as Sanjay Ghorai (37) from Parnasree Pally in Kolkata.
Addressing a press conference at the police conference hall on Friday, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), P Venkata Ratnam said that on July 13, the Gajuwaka crime police had received a complaint from a woman, who stated that on June 21, she had gone to an ATM at Gajuwaka to make a bank transaction. When the ATM was not generating a slip, another person who was also in the ATM helped her, she said. After few days, she found out that close to ₹6 lakh was debited from her bank account in phases and her card had also been swapped.
Based on the complaint, a special team was formed under South sub-division crime Inspector K. Srinivasa Rao. Acting on a tip-off, the police teams identified the accused as a native of Kolkata. Though the accused had attempted to flee from the police, he was arrested at Jharsuguda in Odisha, the DCP said.
Revealing facts ascertained during the investigation, DCP Venkata Ratnam revealed that, the accused, Sanjay Ghorai works as a floor cleaner in a railway station in West Bengal. He is addicted to vices and started to commit ATM thefts, DCP said.
Sanjay targets elderly people, especially women. The accused dresses up like an IT employee and approaches people at ATMs and observes their PIN number on the pretext of helping them while making a transaction. In the process, he swaps the original ATM debit card with a duplicate card, which he carries with him. After taking the card, he withdraws the money and flees from the spot, said the DCP, explaining the modus operandi.
“Though the accused had committed such crimes in West Bengal, Odisha, Telangana, Tamil Nadu apart from Andhra Pradesh, surprisingly no cases were reported anywhere,” she said. Further investigations also revealed that he had committed such offence at S. Kota in 2015. In 2023, he was involved in such case at Parvatipuram and in 2024, he committed similar offences in Visakhapatnam.
In Visakhapatnam city alone, he was found to be involved in 29 such offences at Gajuwaka Allipuram, Duvvada, Dwaraka, Dondaparthy, Poorna Market, Ram Nagar and Kancharapalem. In most of these cases, the victims did not lodge a complain, she said.
The DCP said that the accused has two wives and has a daughter with his second wife. After stealing money, he spends it with his kin and leads a luxurious life, the DCP said.
Images are for reference only.Images and contents gathered automatic from google or 3rd party sources.All rights on the images and contents are with their legal original owners.
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.