Four held for stealing Rs 21 lakh from bank ATM in Ratlam

INDORE: Police on Tuesday arrested four persons, including employees of a company involved in maintaining cash at ATMS, for making away with Rs 21 lakh from an SBI ATM in collector’s office premises in Ratlam.

The accused had flashed their identities as

ATM cash

and

paper filing agents

and made away with the cash on September 2, right under the nose of the security guard.

Police arrested

Kamlesh Malviya

, 25 and Hariom Rameshchandra Malviya, 27, Hariom Kaluram Malviya, 27, and Anil Chouhan, 27 – all residents of village Dhamedi.

Kamlesh and Hariom Rameshchandra, were employees of Writers Safeguard Company, which was outsourced by the bank to maintain and refill the ATMs.

The incident came to fore when banks branch manager Ramniwas Vijayvargiya found that the ATM was short of cash. The bank officials checked the transactions and found out that only Rs 15 lakh were withdrawn by the customers and the rest were missing.

Based on this, a complaint was registered at Station Road police station.

Ratlam superintendent of police Amit Singh said during investigations, it came to fore that the Kalmesh and Hariom had made away with the cash by opening the machine using the key and password.

“The accused had also turned off the CCTV in the ATM machine. There were no cameras in the vestibule. The way in which the crime was committed shows that the accused knew a lot about the machine security,” he said.

Guard Mahesh Rao who was at the ATM at the time of the incident told police that around 8:00 pm the accused reached the spot on a bike and tried to drop the shutter.

“When I asked them not to do so, they told me that they were from the company and had to change the paper roll in the ATM. I asked them to call their manager. They called some person who confirmed to me over phone that they were from the company and had come to change the roll,” said Rao.

Police launched the investigation and found that the accused had hatched the plan to rob the ATM at Kamlesh’s roadside eatery. They had stolen the cash and stashed it at the house of Anil in Dhamedi village.

Police have recovered the money and booked the accused for theft.