Mumbai man held for stealing Rs28 lakh from ATMs

Officers of Mumbai crime branch on Monday arrested a person for allegedly siphoning off over Rs28 lakh from 13 ATM machines of a nationalised bank within seven days.

The arrested person, identified as Kuldeep Kshamanath Chaturvedi, 24, is a resident of Gokul Nagar, Akurli Road, Kandivli (E). Chaturvedi was working with the agency that was assigned the task of depositing money in ATMs by Canara Bank.  

According to Himanshu Roy, joint commissioner of police (crime), the bank had assigned the task to an agency named Securitrans. During routine checks the agency officials realised that something was amiss.

“Manager of Securitrans Shabbir Sultan Sayani lodged a complaint with the Goregaon (E) police station on March 7 stating that over Rs28 lakh was misappropriated by someone from 13 Canara Bank ATMs,” said Roy. 

On a tip-off, officers from Dahisar unit of the Crime Branch, led by inspectors Milind Khetle, Subhash Sawant, Rajesh Kanade, Vijay Kandadgaonkar Sandeep Vishwasrao and Santosh Sankhe, laid a trap at Dahisar check naka opposite Samudra Hotel in Dahisar (E) on Monday afternoon and arrested Chaturvedi. 

“Chaturvedi was employed with Securitrans for the past three years and was entrusted with the responsibility of depositing cash in the ATMs. During interrogation Chaturvedi revealed that from the training provided by the agency and hands-on experience he extracted some technical loopholes of ATM machine operations and withdrew money between February 21 and February 28,” said inspector Khetle. 

The police are yet to recover the stolen money from Chaturvedi. His custody has been handed over to the local police for further investigations. Chaturvedi would be produced before the court on Tuesday for police remand.