The Ghatkopar police have arrested a 33-year-old MBA graduate for allegedly duping ATM users. The accused who has been identified as Taufel Ahmed Lalminya Siddique used to target less educated peopled and on the pretext of helping them he used to cheat them. Police have seized at least 109 debit cards from him.
According to the police, Siddique used to wait near Automated Teller Machine (ATM) centres which were less crowded and had no guards. Later, he identified people who were less educated and used to help them in their transactions. However, he remembered their PIN number and after their transaction was completed he engaged them in conversation and replaced their ATM cards with fake ones. Later, Taufel would withdraws money from their accounts.
"After multiple offences of similar modus operandi were reported, we collected CCTV's of multiple ATM centres and also alerted our informers. Once the identity of the accused was established we arrested him from Sakinaka," said Pramod Kokate police inspector of Ghatkopar police station.
According to the police Taufel a resident of Sakinaka was working with a purifier company until recently, however, he was sacked from his job over his performance issue. During his visit to ATM centre he came up with an idea that could be an easy method to dupe people after which he decided to cheat people. He was previously arrested by Colaba police as well in a similar case.
The police have claimed to solved at least nine cases from Ghatkopar, Pant Nagar, Sakinaka and Mahim. We have written to banks seeking details of the card holders which we have seized from the accused, said an officer.
