Conmen in Bangalore withdraw money using stolen ATM card

Four unidentified men escaped with a backpack kept in parked car at Lalbagh Road after duping the driver on Monday afternoon. They later landed up at an IDBI Bank ATM and withdrew Rs43,000 posing as customers using one of the ATM cards from the bag.

The victim, RK Usha, a media consultant from JP Nagar, said she was at a car showroom on Lalbagh Road when the incident took place. On her return, Usha’s driver told her that two strangers had to the car and flicked the backpack from inside, after diverting his attention.

Apparently, the strangers drew the attention of the driver to a few currency notes on the road. When the driver got out and told them it did not belong to him, they went away. “Within that short time, they took my backpack through the open window and walked away,” Usha said.

Usha complained that she got a slow response from the police department. She had to visit three police stations. “At last, I reached the Sampangiramanagar police station on Tuesday morning. I had to call up the commissioner’s office as officers at the station were not willing to accept my complaint. The commissioner’s office directed the policemen on duty to register a case. By then, I had lost Rs43,000 from one of the accounts,” Usha said. She got to know that the culprits withdrew money from an IDBI Bank ATM through an SMS.

With the FIR, she went to the IDBI branch on KH Road, and the bank officials immediately got the CCTV footage of that particular ATM.

The video showed four well-dressed men walking into the ATM and trying the cards. One of them succeeded in cracking the PIN number and took out the money.

Usha alleged that the police did not respond even after they were given the footage.