Pune: Duo purchase flat & gold with cash stolen from ATMs

PUNE: The Pimpri Chinchwad crime branch’s investigation into the last month’s arrest of two engineers on the charge of tampering and

stealing cash

from

ATMs

revealed that they invested a part of the

stolen

amount in the purchase of a MHADA flat and buying gold items.

At the time of their arrest, the police had recovered cash Rs66 lakh from the duo — Manoj Suryavanshi (30), an electronics engineer who earlier worked with an ATM manufacturing company, and Kiran Bhanudas Kolte, a mechanical engineer notorious for cracking teller machines. Police subsequently arrested their six accomplices, including an engineer, and recovered another Rs6 lakh from them.

Crime branch inspector Shankar Babar and his team made these arrests and also recovered three motorcycles from the suspects.

Both Suryavanshi and Kolte are from Jalgaon district in north Maharashtra and have stolen cash from eight ATMs since December 2017 with their accomplices. Their last strike was on September 24 at an ATM in Dighi before they landed in police net on October 9.

The other six arrested suspects have been identified as Mahesh Devnikar (30) of Katraj, an engineer working with a cash refilling firm, Sagar Taware (31), Tushar Chandgude (25), both of Baramati, Shankar Gaikwad (31) Purandar taluka, Ashish Bhalerao (22) of Chinchwad and Narsinh Dhumal (22) of Latur district.

Babar said that the gang had stolen about Rs94 lakh in the past three years from the different ATMs. “Suryavanshi, who is the mastermind, had purchased

gold ornaments

worth Rs10 lakh from the stolen cash. He mortgaged the ornaments with a finance firm’s Nidgi branch. We have recovered the deposit receipts from the firm and also Rs50,000 more from Suryavanshi.”

He stated that Kolte purchased a flat worth Rs12 lakh in Pimpri Chinchwad area from the stolen amount. “We have recovered the receipts of the purchase of the flat too,” Babar said, adding, “We have recovered Rs5.5 lakh from Dhumal.”

Babar said that the remaining five suspects have spent about Rs7 lakh on medical bills, marriage and for agricultur-related work.