Chandigarh: Habitual ATM fraudster held for duping Hallomajra man

Out on bail, a fraudster, habitual of duping elderly persons who came to withdraw money at ATMs, was arrested by Sector-31 police on Thursday. The accused was identified as Satich Kumar, a resident of Mohali. He worked with a health product company in Mohali and was earlier arrested by Maloya and Sarangpur police.
The accused was arrested after a case was registered against him on the complaint of Rohit Kumar, a resident of Hallomajra. Describing the accused’s modus operandi, inspector Ram Rattan, SHO at Sector-31 police station, said Satich would use a device to cause ATMs to malfunction.
“When his target used to come to withdraw money and enter the PIN, the machine gets stuck. Standing behind, the accused used to offer help and then get to know the PIN number. He then used to keep the original ATM card and return the target a dummy ATM card of the same bank,” he said, adding that the accused then used to withdraw money using the original ATM card. He had over 50 fake debit cards from different banks and used to quickly change the card by noting the colour of the original card.
In the present case, the complainant said he was duped of over ₹20,000 in a similar fashion when he got home and realised that the ATM card he had was not the original one as it was without his name. He immediately called his bank and blocked the card. He returned to the ATM again when the accused was coincidentally present there. He alerted the police and got him arrested.