Bank fraud: Eye on Nepal border
Kolkata: The Kolkata Police in connection with the probe of the bank fraud case has issued special alert for Nepal border and the Border Security Force to strengthen their vigil.
The Romanian or Turkish gang, involved in the operation of siphoning money from bank accounts through ATM withdrawal, could use the borders to evade. Meanwhile, the sleuths have already collected details from the Romanian Consulate in India about the persons who have come to India since January this year.
They have learnt that there are around 250 Romanian nationals who have come here since January.
They are trying to match the details with the photographs of three Romanian nationals that have been captured in Delhi ATMs for the past few days since they received complaints of people from the city about money being siphoned.
A team from the Anti Bank Fraud wing of the detective department is already in Delhi and is working with the Delhi police.
They have identified three ATMs in Delhi where 'suspicious persons 'wearing masks were found withdrawing money at the time when the duped people in Kolkata had received SMS about withdrawal from their accounts.
Since Sunday, there have been 70 complaints where people had claimed of money withdrawal through ATMS from their bank accounts.
Forty-nine complaints have been lodged with Jadavpur, 16 with Charu Market and two with Netaji Nagar police stations. One complaint each has been lodged with Karaya, Ultadanga and Parnasree police stations.
Senior officials of the detective department met14 of the complainants at Lalbazar on Thursday and assured them that they will take up the matter with the bank authorities and ensure that the money that has been withdrawn by the fraudsters are repaid to them.
A senior official of State Bank of India expressed his concern over the incident.
"We are replacing some old ATMs and installing new facilities for enhancement of security," said Arijit Basu, Managing Director, SBI, on the sidelines of Infocom 2019.
The sleuths have identified two ATM's of the same nationalised bank in the city one situated at Sulekha in Jadavpur and another at Tollygunge Circular Road from where the duped persons have transacted at least once during April. Sleuths had found skimming machines in both the ATMs during the month of April and they are are more or less sanguine that the card details were collected by fraudsters through skimmers in the two ATMs.
It may be mentioned that when similar modus operandi of duping customers was noticed some months ago, the police had asked the bank officials to take certain measures, including installation of anti-skimming device in all atms and deploying security guards in all ATMs.
The police have advised ATM users to change their pin frequently preferably during every three months to prevent such fraudulent transactions.
